Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
Justice Department moves to remove 2 Minnesota judges from cases after they told the Times ICE defied their orders
— Justice Department moves to remove 2 Minnesota judges from cases after they told the Times ICE defied their orders.
After federal judges described ICE’s violations of court orders during last winter’s Minneapolis surge, the department filed a misconduct complaint against them and then asked to take two of them off cases.
What happened
On September 17, 2026, the New York Times published interviews with Minnesota federal judges about Operation Metro Surge, the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis last winter. Judge Patrick Schiltz, then chief judge, said ICE’s violations of court orders “created a grave threat to the rule of law.” Judge John Tunheim said agents “weren’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street.”
On September 30, Attorney General Todd Blanche filed a judicial misconduct complaint with the 8th Circuit against Schiltz, Tunheim and the other judges who spoke. It asked that they be removed from any case involving the Department of Homeland Security.
On October 20, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward moved to disqualify Schiltz from a case seeking to strip a man’s citizenship, and Tunheim from the prosecution of a South African national charged with voting illegally. Days earlier Woodward had moved to disqualify D.C. Judge Ana Reyes in a case on Trump’s golf-course plans; she rejected it.
Where it stands
Schiltz has set a hearing for November 23; Tunheim has not acted. The 8th Circuit’s misconduct proceeding is confidential.
Who benefited
The Justice Department, which would get different judges in two of its immigration cases. A law professor at the University of St. Thomas, Greg Sisk, told MPR the motions appear meant to “send a message to every other federal judge.”
Who wanted something
Woodward wrote that a judge “who has publicly taken sides on the political issue of immigration enforcement” cannot preside. Blanche said the judges’ comments showed “obvious bias.”
Who lost out
Judges who described ICE’s defiance of their orders. The Minnesota court said its judges acted “well within the ethical rules,” citing a February 2026 advisory opinion that judges may speak on the rule of law and judicial independence.
Why it matters
The judges who said the government ignored their orders are now the ones under complaint. Judges are how court orders get enforced against the administration; a misconduct complaint and recusal motions over describing those violations raise the cost of saying so in public.
Sources U.S. Department of Justice (primary)CBS NewsMPR NewsMinnesota Star Tribune
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