By Ira Mehlman
FAIR
Last Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the FBI had arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly assisting an illegal alien evade arrest by ICE.
The arrest stems from events that took place on April 18, when Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican illegal alien arrived in Judge Dugan’s courtroom for a pre-trial hearing regarding three misdemeanor battery charges. During the hearing, ICE agents (accompanied by FBI and DEA agents) arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse with an arrest warrant for Flores-Ruiz. According to Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley, day, the federal agents identified themselves to security and proceeded to the hallway outside Judge Dugan’s courtroom. “They were asked whether they had a warrant, and the agents presented the warrant as well as their identification. They were asked to go to Chief Judge’s office [while they waited for the hearing to finish]. They complied. … They presented a warrant, which we copied” before the agents returned to the corridor to wait for the hearing to be completed.
In the criminal complaint, government prosecutors explained that Flores-Ruiz was in the U.S. illegally after having already been removed to Mexico in January 2013 through the Nogales, Arizona, Port of Entry. Prosecutors also explained illegal reentry after removal is a criminal offense under 8 U.S.C § 1326. Prosecutors noted that ICE agents chose to arrest the suspect at the courthouse because “the wanted individual would have entered through a security checkpoint and thus unarmed, minimizing the risk of injury to law enforcement, the public, and the wanted individual”.
According to the complaint, when Judge Dugan, who had previously served as executive director of Catholic Charities, an organization that has been accused of abetting illegal immigration, learned of the presence of federal law enforcement officers outside her courtroom, witnesses said she became “visibly angry.” At that point, she exited the courtroom and confronted the agents in the hallway. “Witnesses uniformly reported that Judge Dugan was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor” and demanded to know if the officers had a judicial warrant to take Flore-Ruiz into custody. When the deportation officers responded that the agents had an administrative warrant, she told them she was not required to comply with an administrative warrant.
Although Judge Dugan was not may not have been required to comply with the administrative warrant under Wisconsin law, what she is alleged to have done next crossed the line against harboring and concealing an illegal alien from arrest.
Upon returning to her courtroom and conferring with Flores-Ruiz and his attorney, the two began walking toward the door to the public corridor where the federal agents were waiting. “The courtroom deputy then saw Judge Dugan get up and heard Judge Dugan say something like ‘Wait, come with me,’” states the criminal complaint. “Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge Dugan then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” the document continues. From there, another witness “saw Judge Dugan escort Flores-Ruiz’s attorney and [Flores-Ruiz] through a non-public door near the courtroom’s jury box.”
Flores-Ruiz and his attorney managed to exit the courthouse but were quickly spotted by an FBI and DEA agent. After a brief pursuit on foot, Flores-Ruiz was taken into custody and turned over to ICE.
Judge Dugan is being charged with violation of Title 18 U.S.C, Section 1505 and Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1701, which prohibits harboring or concealing “any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest, after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant or process has been issued for the apprehension of such person.”
