The Trump fascists have many problems in Minnesota. One of them is the Chief U.S. District Judge of Minnesota, Patrick J. Schiltz, appointed by President George W. Bush.
Judge Schiltz believes in his oath of office. He believes in upholding the Constitution. That spells trouble for Trump’s military occupation of Minneapolis.
Politico wrote about Judge Schiltz:
“My hope is to be the Benjamin Harrison of chief judges: one that no one remembers,” he told his hometown paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, in 2022.
Four years later, the mild-mannered George W. Bush appointee — known for his conservative jurisprudence, his clerkship with late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his mentorship of future Justice Amy Coney Barrett — has been thrust into an increasingly pitched legal confrontation with President Donald Trump’s immigration forces.
It’s a role that will be remembered.
Schiltz, 65, has publicly aired his fury over the Trump administration’s mistreatment of noncitizens arrested in Operation Metro Surge, the Department of Homeland Security’s mass deportation push in the Twin Cities. He blasted the Justice Department for its criticism of his courthouse colleagues and labeled as “frivolous” the administration’s effort to compel him to issue an arrest warrant for former CNN anchor Don Lemon and others involved in last week’s church protest in St. Paul.
The clash is slated to reach a climax Friday, when Schiltz plans to haul into his Minneapolis courtroom Todd Lyons, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to grill him about the rampant violation of court orders that Schiltz and his colleagues say has poisoned the trust between the administration and the court.
CNN wrote that Judge Schiltz is ready to hold Lyons’ feet to the fire.
The hearing raises the prospect that a top federal official could be sanctioned for his agency’s failures to obey the courts. And at the very least, he’ll be forced to begin accounting for an extraordinary number of cases — more than 2,000, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney — in which judges have ruled that ICE has illegally detained people…
In a court order, Schiltz cited “dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks….”
Schiltz acknowledged his move was extraordinary, but he added that “the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.”
“The Court’s patience is at an end,” he added….
The order follows a pair of letters Schiltz sent last week that featured similarly exasperated language, this time about people who were arrested for protesting at a St. Paul church where they claimed a pastor was a top local ICE official..
In that case, Schiltz derided what he cast as an effort by the Justice Department to ignore the usual process in order to bring charges in a politically charged case.
A magistrate judge found there was no probable cause to charge five of the eight people DOJ wanted to charge, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who has said he was acting in his capacity as a journalist. The DOJ quickly asked for the district court to intervene. Schiltz said he surveyed a wide variety of colleagues, and everyone who responded could think of no precedent for such a request. Then when Schiltz didn’t rule fast enough, the DOJ sought the intervention of an appeals court, which ultimately declined.
In his letters, Schiltz cited “the defiance of several court orders by ICE, and the illegal detention of many detainees by ICE (including, yesterday, a two-year old).”
He wrote at one point: “The government has also argued that I must accept this as true because they said it, and they are the government.”
The judge also criticized the government for characterizing the situation as a national security-related emergency, noting it had declined to bring the cases to a grand jury that could have decided on charges quickly.
(The administration has failed to get grand juries to indict in a number of such politically charged cases in which the evidence appeared thin.)
Schiltz’s first letter, in particular, is remarkable.
CNN legal contributor Steve Vladeck wrote Sunday, before the judge summoned Lyons, that his letters were must-reads when it comes to understanding the Trump DOJ’s manipulation of the legal process.
“Were it not for Chief Judge Schiltz’s actions here, we might not know about any of this backstory — or, even worse, the Eighth Circuit might have simply acceded to the government’s entirely one-sided account of what happened and granted unprecedented relief,” Vladeck wrote.
He argued that other judges should lay these things bare just like Schiltz did. And now Schiltz’s summoning of Lyons puts these issues even more squarely in the spotlight.
On Friday, a judge with impeccable conservative credentials is set to hold an extraordinary hearing putting the top ICE official in a Republican administration on the spot about its disregard for court orders.
And it could be a big moment in an already bad week for the administration’s Minneapolis crackdown.
However, Judge Schiltz cancelled the hearing after ICE met one of his stipulations, releasing an immigrant named Juan T.R., as per his order. The Court had previously demanded the release of Juan by January 15. ICE ignored the court’s order. Judge Schiltz wanted to know why. When Juan was finally released, Judge Schlitz canceled the hearing.
In his statement canceling the hearing, Judge Schiltz made clear his impatience. He wrote:
Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted.
This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence. The Court warns ICE that future noncompliance with court orders may result in future show‐cause orders requiring the personal appearances of Lyons or other government officials. ICE is not a law unto itself. ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.
FOX News thought they did a gotcha on Judge Schlitz when they discovered that he had donated to immigrant legal groups. AHA! A closet liberal!
But he stopped them in their tracks with his response. FOX said:
A Minnesota-based federal judge who threatened to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons in contempt of court has donated to a nonprofit that gives legal support to illegal immigrants.
Judge Patrick Schiltz, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, and his wife were listed in a 2019 annual report for the organization, the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, which routinely condemns the Trump administration and advertises free legal advice for immigrants, refugees and people detained by ICE.
Schiltz told Fox News Digital in a statement he has “donated for many years to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.
“I have also donated for many years to Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. I believe that poor people should be able to get legal representation,” Schiltz said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 