'Extraordinary step' as judge orders top Trump official into court on threat of contempt

A key Trump official is facing the possibility of being held in contempt, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney, after a leading judge in Minnesota lashed the administration for failure to comply with court orders in a new filing from Monday.

According to filing documents shared to social media by Cheney, Judge Patrick J. Schlitz, the chief federal judge for the District of Minnesota, ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE under Donald Trump, to appear in court on Friday to answer for his agency's evident court order violations.

"Judge Schlitz, the chief federal judge in Minnesota, has ordered the head of ICE, Todd Lyons, to [appear] in court Friday and threatened him with contempt for the agency’s repeated violation of court orders," Cheney wrote in a post shared to X and BlueSky Tuesday morning.

In the documents, Schlitz explained that the court had previously ordered ICE to hold a bond hearing for a petitioner named "Juan T.R.," an individual detained by the agency, within one week of the order's issuance. If that hearing had not been provided in the time given by the court, T.R. was to be released from custody. As the filing explained, after the allotted time elapsed, T.R. had not been given a hearing and remained in detention.

This, Schlitz wrote, was part of a growing trend of ICE flouting court orders in Minnesota, resulting in detained individuals, many of whom have no criminal history, being taken to holding facilities in Texas.

"This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed toc omply in recent weeks," Schlitz's filing reads. "The practical consequence of respondents' failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong). The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home."

The filing continued: "This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result. Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward. Unfortunately, though, the violations continue. The Court's patience is at an end."

Schlitz therefore ordered Lyons to personally appear in court to explain why he should not face contempt charges for his agency's actions. The judge acknowledged that this was an "extraordinary step" to take, but argued that it was warranted in the face of ICE's "likewise extraordinary" defiance of court orders.