A federal judge in Minnesota held a Trump administration attorney in civil contempt for “flagrant disobedience of court orders” in the case of a noncitizen swept up in the immigration crackdown there earlier this year.
The contempt finding by US District Judge Laura Provinzino on Wednesday appears to mark the first time a federal attorney has faced court-ordered sanctions during President Donald Trump’s second term.
It comes as judges in the Twin Cities and elsewhere have grown increasingly impatient with the administration’s repeated violations of court orders, particularly in fast-moving immigration cases.
The appointee of former President Joe Biden said that starting Friday, the lawyer, Matthew Isihara, must pay $500 each day that the immigrant is not given back identification documents that weren’t initially returned to him when he was released last week from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, as she had ordered.
As Provinzino imposed the sanction, she brushed aside Isihara’s attempt to explain that the violation wasn’t intentional, but instead a result of the case slipping through the cracks amid an “enormous volume of cases” stemming from Operation Metro Surge.
“The government’s understaffing and high caseload is a problem of its own making and absolutely does not justify flagrant disobedience of court orders,” the judge said during a hearing Wednesday, according to a transcript obtained by CNN.
“I don’t believe I need to do additional hand-holding on this. I think it’s clear what needs to happen,” she added. “Petitioner needs to get his documents immediately, and there will be a $500 sanction any day beyond tomorrow that they are not received by his attorney.”
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
Isihara is a military attorney who went to the Twin Cities to help the Justice Department handle a flood of immigration cases brought by noncitizens seeking to be released from ICE custody, which had overwhelmed its team on the ground, leading to non-compliance issues in other cases.
Provinzino on February 9 ordered the government to release the man, a Mexican national who had lived in Minnesota since 2018, after she determined that he was being unlawfully detained. Her order mandated that he be released in Minnesota no later than February 13 and that all his property be handed over to him. But the government flouted that order in three different ways, the judge said, including by releasing him in Texas, where he was being held, and not giving him back his identification documents.
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