Top Minnesota Judge Vows 'ICE Will Comply' as He Threatens DOJ With Criminal Contempt

A senior federal judge in Minnesota, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, warned on 26 February 2026 that he is prepared to escalate to criminal contempt if US officials keep failing to follow his court orders, insisting that 'ICE will comply' with the court's directions.

Schiltz says his court has been forced into an unusually repetitive cycle of threats and enforcement because, in his telling, ICE has continued breaching deadlines even after the court publicly identified a pattern of noncompliance in late January.

He says ICE ignored a sequence of orders in the habeas case of Juan T.R., then continued to rack up violations across many other cases, and that a senior Justice Department official responded by attacking the court's accuracy rather than fixing the underlying problem.

ICE And A Judge's Patience

The flashpoint case is Juan T.R. v. Noem et al, a petition filed on 8 January 2026 in which Schiltz ordered the government to answer by 12 January and, after no answer arrived, granted the writ in part and required a bond hearing within seven days or immediate release. The judge wrote that the respondents did neither within the time required, prompting a further show cause order and a hearing at which he ordered the personal appearance of Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, unless the parties stipulated that Juan had been released. When they filed such a stipulation, Schiltz cancelled the hearing in an order dated 28 January 2026.

In the 26 February supplemental order, Schiltz revisits what he calls 'grave concerns about ICE's noncompliance with court orders' and describes the court's effort to verify the accuracy of an appendix that, in January, identified 96 court orders the judge said ICE had violated in 74 cases. After rechecking, Schiltz says the court found some mistakes 'that cut both ways' but concludes that ICE violated 97 orders in 66 of the cases previously listed, meaning the January order was not, in his view, 'beyond the pale of accuracy.'

The judge also points the finger at what he describes as an operational mismatch, writing that 'the Administration' sent '3000 ICE agents to Minnesota to detain people without making any provision for handling the hundreds of lawsuits that were sure to follow.' He adds that the court remains 'overwhelmed with the legal work created by Operation Metro Surge'.

ICE Faces A Criminal Contempt Warning

If the February order reads like a rebuke, it is also an answer to a rebuttal. Schiltz says Minnesota's top federal prosecutor, US Attorney Daniel N. Rosen, emailed him on 9 February accusing the court of wildly overstating the scale of ICE's noncompliance and describing the January order as 'far beyond the pale of accuracy for an order that would be wielded so publicly and so sharply.' In the same exchange, Rosen wrote, 'The lawyers in my civil division didn't deserve it'.

Schiltz does not dispute that line attorneys are strained. He quotes his own earlier show cause order praising Ana Voss and colleagues for 'struggl[ing] mightily to ensure that respondents comply with court orders' despite inadequate resources, and says many government lawyers have been placed in an 'impossible position,' adding that resignations have followed, including Voss, who he notes resigned as civil chief. But he argues the supposed improvement Rosen promised does not match what the court found next.

Rosen's email, Schiltz writes, promised that prosecutors would 'redouble our efforts to achieve compliance' and claimed those efforts had already 'led to considerable improvement'. Schiltz says that assurance 'appears to be untrue,' pointing to an additional list he labels Appendix B, which he says documents 113 additional court orders violated by ICE in 77 additional cases, with most of those violations occurring after the 28 January order.

Politico reported that Schiltz framed the new filing as a follow up to a January letter accusing the Trump administration of defying more than 90 court orders in that month. The same report notes that other judges in Minnesota have also sharpened their stance in related disputes, including civil contempt findings and planned hearings focused on transfers and property issues.​

Schiltz ends his own order with the line that will echo far beyond Minneapolis. 'This Court will continue to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law, including, if necessary, moving to the use of criminal contempt,' he wrote. 'One way or another, ICE will comply with this Court's orders.'