Arrested judges, exiled citizens, and warrantless raids: ICE is turning into America's secret police

Immigration authorities (at one time made up primarily of ICE agents, but now accompanied by a myriad of federal officers) are quickly morphing into the Trump administration’s secret police force, operating covertly outside of the bounds of law, bypassing due process, and surveilling the population while cultivating fear and suppressing dissent.

In the last few weeks, we have seen masked men raid courthouses, agents harass a lawyer who helped an undocumented family, ICE storm the wrong house and seize the family’s savings, officers tase a man for a civil infraction, and DHS abduct green card holders at their citizenship interviews. Meanwhile, the administration is arresting judges, trampling constitutional rights, and “deporting” U.S. children without parental consent. These are the machinations of a secret police force operating to impose a fascist agenda on the American people.

Arrest of judges

The Trump administration dramatically escalated its attacks on the courts last month when the FBI arrested Wisconsin County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest in her courtroom.

Arrest of Judge Dugan

According to the criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin federal court, ICE was in the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 to effectuate an arrest warrant for Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican undocumented immigrant facing misdemeanor battery charges in Dugan’s courtroom. Agents were accompanied by personnel from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), likely reassigned from their usual duties to immigration enforcement.

Upon learning of the agents’ presence in the courthouse, a “visibly upset” (to use the government’s phrasing) Judge Dugan left her courtroom and confronted the arrest team in the hallway.

Judge Dugan addressed Deportation Officer A and asked if Deportation Officer A was present for a court appearance. When Deportation Officer A responded, “no,” Judge Dugan stated that Deportation Officer A would need to leave the courthouse. Deportation Officer A stated that Deportation Officer A was there to effectuate an arrest. Judge Dugan asked if Deportation Officer A had a judicial warrant, and Deportation Officer A responded, “No, I have an administrative warrant.” Judge Dugan stated that Deportation Officer A needed a judicial warrant. Deportation Officer A told Judge Dugan that Deportation Officer A was in a public space and had a valid immigration warrant…Judge Dugan then demanded that Deportation Officer A speak with the Chief Judge.

The chief judge advised the agents that the hallways were public spaces and that they were allowed to be there. Meanwhile, according to the courtroom deputy, Judge Dugan returned to her courtroom and directed Flores-Ruiz to leave through the “jury door,” which leads to a non-public area of the courthouse. This action is the basis of the government’s claim that Dugan obstructed a proceeding and concealed an individual to prevent an arrest. However, the exit of the non-public area leads directly back to the public hallway, which is where agents encountered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney. An officer identified as DEA Agent A even rode the elevator down to the ground floor of the courthouse with Flores-Ruiz and followed him out of the building, where he was detained.

The FBI arrested Dugan on April 25, making a public spectacle of escorting her out of the courthouse in handcuffs and posting a ‘perp walk’ photo online. They did not give her an opportunity to turn herself in, as is customary with a non-violent offender who is not a flight risk. The government also did not obtain a grand jury indictment, meaning that they will still have to prove their case in front of a grand jury before the charges are formally approved.

All of this is a departure from standard operating procedure. The Trump administration was more interested in intimidating the judiciary, silencing dissent, and cultivating fear than in adhering to established guidelines. That’s also why Attorney General Pam Bondi made a point of giving interviews about Dugan’s arrest in front of the White House lawn decorated with mugshots of arrested migrants, a new level of dehumanization and fascist propaganda from a regime that appears to have no bottom to the depths of their cruelty.

“This is a criminal judge sitting on a criminal bench,” Bondi said about Dugan in front of the disturbing lineup, adding that “the victims of crime should be very happy today.” She is, of course, intentionally ignoring that courthouse ICE arrests dissuade immigrants—whether offenders, witnesses, or victims—from showing up to court in the first place, further undermining the rule of law and preventing victims from obtaining justice.

Department of Defense

Three weeks ago, Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum ordering DHS and the Department of the Interior to transfer federal land along the U.S. southern border to the Department of Defense. The strip of land, now known as the National Defense Area, extends from the southeastern border region of New Mexico (just outside El Paso, Texas) along the national border through Arizona and California. Using a national security “emergency” to hand the area off to the Defense Department, transforming it into a military installation, permits the armed forces to operate as domestic law enforcement, bypassing Posse Comitatus Act restrictions.

The first parcel of land in New Mexico, east of Fort Huachuca, is now under military control. According to the Washington Post, immigrants caught in the area were detained by troops on April 18, charged with “illegal entry without inspection” and a new, second charge: “penalty for violation of security regulations” for unlawful entry into a military installation, which carries penalties including increased jail time and $100,000 in fines.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is assisting the administration in circumventing court orders that require due process for immigrants. Massachusetts District Judge Brian Murphy (a Biden appointee) issued a temporary restraining order on March 28 prohibiting DHS from removing immigrants to a third country without (a) written notice of the third country to where they may be removed and (b) “a meaningful opportunity” to submit an application for protection, including withholding of removal. The order means that DHS cannot summarily deport an individual to a country other than the country designated for removal (usually their home country) by an immigration judge. (Note that this applies to the Immigration and Nationality Act, not the Alien Enemies Act)

This case presents a simple question: before the United States forcibly sends someone to a country other than their country of origin, must that person be told where they are going and be given a chance to tell the United States that they might be killed if sent there? Defendants argue that the United States may send a deportable alien to a country not of their origin, not where an immigration judge has ordered, where they may be immediately tortured and killed, without providing that person any opportunity to tell the deporting authorities that they face grave danger or death because of such a deportation.

In an April 23 court filing, the Trump administration admitted to removing immigrants to a third country after Judge Murphy issued his restraining order (later converted to a preliminary injunction). The Department of Justice claims that the government’s actions did not violate the court order because the immigrants were first sent to Guantanamo, then flown to a third country (El Salvador, presumably to be imprisoned in CECOT) by the Department of Defense, which is not a defendant in the case.

Judge Murphy amended his preliminary injunction yesterday, ordering that “prior to removing, or allowing or permitting another agency to remove, an alien from Guantanamo Bay to a third country, Defendants must comport with the terms of the [earlier injunction] by providing the due process guarantees.”

Constitutional rights

Search warrants

Last month, we learned that the Department of Justice advised law enforcement in March that they do not need a warrant to enter the homes of suspected “alien enemies,” undermining one of the most basic constitutional protections in America: the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

According to the DOJ memo, obtaining a warrant of apprehension and removal signed by an immigration judge (an administrative warrant) “will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies.” Officers are “authorized to apprehend aliens upon a reasonable belief” that they fall under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), which, for now, means officers believe them to be members of Tren de Aragua. “This authority,” the memo continues, “includes entering an Alien Enemy’s residence to make an AEA apprehension where circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a signed Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal.”

Put simply, the DOJ has purported to authorize ICE agents to enter homes without any warrant—let alone a judicial warrant (vs. an administrative warrant that does not allow unauthorized entry to private spaces)—if the agents suspect an occupant is a member of Tren de Aragua. As we’ve seen, the government’s evidence of Tren de Aragua membership has been paper-thin at best and completely fabricated at worst. What this policy effectively does, therefore, is allow law enforcement to raid the homes of any Venezuelan without judicial oversight.

Reasonable notice

There is currently a temporary restraining order in place in the Southern District of Texas that prevents the government from relocating or removing any immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) from El Valle Detention Center. The judge in that case, Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. (a Trump appointee), unsealed a declaration from an ICE official in which the government admits to only giving detainees 12 hours to object to removal and 24 hours to actually file a petition:

The ICE official then says that the government may send immigrants to be imprisoned in El Salvador even if they have a habeas petition pending if the courts do not move fast enough for the government’s liking:

This false veneer of due process is exactly why the U.S. Supreme Court needs to define what it means to provide immigrants “reasonable time” to contest their removal. Some district courts have begun to impose clear time requirements (e.g., 21 days notice in Colorado) on the administration, but they have so far been the exception, not the rule.

Arrests of U.S. citizens

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen born in Georgia, was illegally arrested by Florida Highway Patrol on April 16 under a court-blocked state law criminalizing undocumented immigrants who enter the state. Lopez-Gomez, who spent much of his childhood in Mexico and does not speak English, was a passenger in a vehicle traveling from Georgia to Florida for construction work when the car was pulled over for speeding.

According to law enforcement, Lopez-Gomez told the trooper that he was in the country illegally. Lopez-Gomez insists that he did not say he was in the country illegally and adds that he presented a Georgia-issued Real ID card, which can only be obtained by U.S. citizens, and a copy of his social security card.

The Highway Patrol arrested Lopez-Gomez for violating Florida Senate Bill 4-C, a law passed in February that makes it a misdemeanor crime for undocumented immigrants to enter the state. However, District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the law’s enforcement at the beginning of April—meaning Lopez-Gomez’s arrest, even if he had been undocumented, was illegal. (Judge Williams set a hearing in May to determine whether to hold Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in contempt for violating her order)

Lopez-Gomez spent the night in Leon County jail. During his first court appearance in the morning, his mom presented Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans with his birth certificate, proving her son’s citizenship. Riggans found that there was no probable cause for the charge after inspecting his birth certificate, but ruled that she lacked jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez due to an ICE detainer asking the jail to hold him for 48 hours. There is no reason ICE should have jurisdiction over an acknowledged U.S. citizen.

The story garnered national news attention, prompting ICE to quickly lift the detainer request and release Lopez-Gomez on the evening of April 19. If he did not have family close by or if they did not have access to his birth certificate, how long would he have sat in a detention facility? Would he already have been “deported” (an incorrect term for the forced removal of a U.S. citizen from the country), a victim of another “administrative error,” by now?

Jose Hermosillo

Jose Hermosillo, a 19-year-old U.S. citizen, was arrested by a Border Patrol agent in New Mexico on April 8. According to DHS, Hermosillo walked up to a Border Patrol agent and announced that he was a citizen of Mexico and entered the U.S. illegally. The agent detained Hermosillo, holding him for 10 days at a privately run immigration detention facility called Florence Correctional Center, before he was released on April 17. "Hermosillo's arrest and detention were a direct result of his own actions and statements,” the official DHS account tweeted on X/Twitter.

Hermosillo tells a different story: He was in Tucson, Arizona, visiting his girlfriend’s family from their home in New Mexico, when he had a seizure and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. After receiving treatment, Hermosillo realized he did not know how to return to his girlfriend’s place. He approached a Border Patrol vehicle and asked for assistance:

"You're not from here. Do you have your papers?" the officer said, according to Hermosillo. When the officer asked where he was from, Hermosillo said he told the officer, "New Mexico." The officer then accused Hermosillo of lying. "Don't make me [out] like [I'm] stupid," the officer said. "I know you're from Mexico." After that, Hermosillo said, he was arrested.

Hermosillo said that he never told the officer that he was born in Mexico, was a citizen of Mexico, or entered the country illegally.

The agent wrote a transcript of their conversation, claiming Hermosillo said he was in the country illegally, and had him sign it. However, Hermosillo has significant learning disabilities and cannot read. He explained that he signed the transcript because the agent ordered him to “sign everything,” but he did not understand the contents of the document.

Two days into his detention, Hermosillo finally had the chance to tell a judge that he was a U.S. citizen. But he did not have any documents to prove it; he did not travel with his birth certificate (who does?) and he did not bring his New Mexico identification with him to the hospital because he was in the midst of a medical emergency. Prosecutors, therefore, requested that he remain in detention until a future hearing could be convened to determine his status. It wasn’t until seven days later, ten days after his arrest, that Hermosillo received another hearing and his family presented his birth certificate. A magistrate judge in Tucson finally dismissed the charges and released Hermosillo on April 17.

Exile of U.S. citizens

Last week, the Trump administration exiled, for lack of a better word, three children who are U.S. citizens without due process or legal representation.

One of the children, known by the initials VML, is just two years old. She accompanied her mother and older sister, both citizens of Honduras, to a routine check-in with immigration authorities on April 22, when they were all detained. Roughly 12 hours later, VML’s mother was able to call her partner, VML’s father, from an ICE facility. Officers only let the two speak for about a minute, which was not enough time to discuss their daughter’s future. When the father tried to give the mother the phone number of their attorney, “he heard the phone be taken away from her and someone terminated the call.”

VML’s father quickly delegated custody of VML to his sister-in-law, a U.S. citizen. All attempts to secure a legal call with the mother were rebuffed by ICE, which refused to provide any information on the family’s whereabouts, stating that their deportation “was certain.” When the attorney eventually got Field Office Director Mellissa Harper on the phone the next day, Harper refused to release VML to the family’s designated custodian, “stating that she would instead require VML’s father to essentially turn himself in for detention and deportation.”

In other words, [Harper] was choosing to use VML, a two-year-old U.S. citizen child, as bait for her father.

The family’s attorney filed a habeas petition and a motion for a temporary restraining order (linked above) on April 24, seeking to prevent the 2-year-old’s removal from the country. The DOJ responded by claiming that VML’s mother “made known to ICE officials that she wanted to retain custody” and take her daughter to Honduras with her. However, the only evidence ICE provided of her mother’s intentions was a handwritten note that simply said, “I’m bringing my daughter [VML] with me to Honduras.” As the family pointed out, the handwritten note is a factual statement of events, “not a statement of intent, hope, desire, or assessment of what is best [for] VML.”

Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, got involved on the afternoon of April 25, calling the Department of Justice to “speak with VML’s mother and survey her consent and custodial rights.” The DOJ called him back nearly an hour later, informing him that “ a call with VML’s mother would not be possible, because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras.” In sum, the government knowingly exiled a two-year-old U.S. citizen who had a U.S. citizen custodian against the wishes of the father and without knowing the wishes of the mother, in the middle of legal proceedings, in order to avoid judicial review.

Judge Doughty has set a hearing for May 16 “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”

We know comparatively little about the family of the other two U.S. citizens exiled by the Trump administration last week. There does not appear to be a publicly available legal trail to follow (if a case was even filed). According to their attorney, the mother, a citizen of Honduras, was detained by ICE with her 4-year-old and 7-year-old U.S. citizen children, the youngest of whom has stage 4 cancer. The mother was not allowed to speak to family members or lawyers before they were removed from the country:

“She did not sign anything, did not write anything and did not consent to anything expressly. The entire time she was trying very aggressively to speak to her lawyer,” González said. “As a matter of fact, she was trying to get ahold of a phone to try to call her family and her attorney. But she wasn’t being allowed.”

The mother reportedly wanted her children to stay in America, especially because the 4-year-old was undergoing cancer treatment and required medication. “Not only did they deport this family against the mother’s wishes; they were deported without the child’s medication,” the family’s attorney said.