FBI Director Kash Patel said on Friday that federal agents arrested a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, judge who is suspected of helping an illegal immigrant from Mexico evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
Last week, ICE agents showed up at a Milwaukee County Courthouse to arrest a Mexican citizen after a hearing before Judge Hannah Dugan. The judge directed ICE agents to wait in Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office and then told the defendant to exit the courtroom through a side door, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest,” Patel said in a post that was initially deleted. “Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.” It was not immediately clear why Patel chose to initially delete the post, but he reposted the same statement a short while later.
The FBI director added that the bureau would share more information “soon” and thanked the FBI’s Milwaukee field office for its work in arresting the judge.
United States Attorney General Pam Bondi also confirmed Dugan’s arrest in a post to X, stating, “I can confirm that our @FBI agents just arrested Hannah Dugan – a county judge in Milwaukee – for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid an arrest by @ICEgov. No one is above the law.”
According to Chief Judge Ashley, who sent an email to other judges about the incident, ICE agents showed a warrant for the illegal immigrant’s arrest and followed courthouse protocols. Dugan, who has served on the bench for nine years, responded to that email, however, saying “a warrant was not presented” to her.
ICE agents have routinely shown up at the Milwaukee County Courthouse in recent weeks with arrest warrants. In the past two months, two suspected illegal immigrants were arrested by federal agents in the courthouse hallways.
During Trump’s first term in office, a Massachusetts judge was charged by the Justice Department with obstructing immigration agents after she and a court officer allegedly helped an illegal immigrant sneak out the back door of the courthouse. The federal government later dropped the charges after the judge agreed to go through potential judicial discipline.
