The Justice Department took the unusual step of filing a complaint with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit against judges who publicly discussed their concerns over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge. At the center of the dispute is a New York Times article featuring Judge Patrick Schiltz, who gave a 90-minute interview describing what he said were repeated violations of court orders by the government. Schiltz, nominated by President George W. Bush and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, accused the government in January of failing to comply with nearly 100 court orders and wrote in a ruling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "is not a law unto itself."
Attorney General Todd Blanche argued the judges violated judicial ethics and showed bias in their remarks. "When we have a situation like we have now, where you have a judge, a couple of judges, just not only violating the canons in our view, but also showing bias in what they're saying, we have no choice but to act to defend not only our prosecutors, but also DHS," Blanche said at a press conference.
The complaint names Schiltz and Judge John Tunheim, nominated by President Bill Clinton, along with anonymous district judges serving on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Six of the seven members of Minnesota's federal bench spoke with the New York Times about Operation Metro Surge, which led to thousands of arrests in the Twin Cities during last winter.
The DOJ is demanding the judges recuse themselves from all criminal and civil cases involving the Department of Homeland Security. However, a Minnesota federal court spokesperson told the Associated Press that legal experts have stated the judges acted "well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges" in their comments to the newspaper.