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FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

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Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the FBI participated in this arrest is chilling. ICE being a proto secret police seems to be perceived already. The FBI now? There’s question whether the ICE agents even had legal grounds to demand arrest regardless, whether they had a warrant, etc - and the facts established are pretty clearly not prosecutable. So this is pure intimidation, going after the judicial in what will likely be a flagrantly abusiv…

[flagged]

You would be surprised but our constitution is not "We vote for a king every 4 years and do whatever king desires" in fact.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the FBI complaint that was just made available: Judge Dugan escorted the subject through a "jurors door" to private hallways and exits instead of having the defendant leave via the main doors into the public hallway, where she visually confirmed the agents were waiting for him. I couldn't tell if the judge knew for certain that ICE was only permitted to detain the defendant in 'public spaces' or not. Reg…

If this is all true, it still requires the judge be under some legal order to facilitate the deportation -- unless they have a warrant of the relevant type, the judge is under no such obligation. With a standard (administrative) warrant, ICE have no authority to demand the arrest.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1071

That's a general applicable law that prevents anyone - judge or not - from interfering with an apprehension.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#423
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ICE agents didn't have a warrant, so the judge was under no legal obligation to say anything to them at all.

according to this story, they had a warrant: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/23/ice-...

note that ICE often attempts to treat administrative warrants as judicial warrants, and it's unclear from this reporting what they actually had

[edit: it was an administrative warrant, not an _actual_ judicial warrant]

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#424
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ICE agents didn't have a warrant, so the judge was under no legal obligation to say anything to them at all.

according to this story, they had a warrant: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/23/ice-...

According to the story you linked, they claim they had a warrant but the judge and other staff say the warrant was never presented.

Further, ICE has a habit of lying about this. They refer to the documents they write as "administrative warrants", which are not real judicial warrants and have no legal standing at all. So when ICE says they presented a warrant it's important to dig in and see if it was one of their fake ones.

Here's an article about that last point from the same source you used: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2025/04/23/what-is...

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#425
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accused is accused of violating federal law, so it's normal that a federal agency would make the arrest. FBI seems to make more sense than DEA or ATF, no?

>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. You can't just arrest someone for nothing. You need probable cause. The question is whe…

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Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#426
post #369
post #332

If you want a primary source, I recommend reading https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11... In particular, part D: "Judge DUGAN escorts Flores-Ruiz through a “jury door” to avoid his arrest."

Not necessarily to avoid his arrest, only the fact they went through a jury door is indicated for now.

That's a quote from the complaint against her. It hasnt been tried yet.

Read the document. The agents showed up to arrest Flores-Ruiz. The agents complied with the courtroom deputy to wait until after the proceeding and the deputy agreed to help with the arrest. They waited outside the courtroom at the deputy's request since it was a public space and they didnt have a warrent to enter the jury chamber. The judge was alerted of the officers and approached them and told them to leave. She directed them to go meet with another judge about the matter. She personally lead Flores-Ruiz out through the jury room.

All this stuff appears to be corroborated by witnesses.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#427

Democratic states really need to start disallowing federal agents to operate within their borders and band together. Activate their respective national guards and make it happen. Yes, that means defying federal law. Yes that means exactly the consequences you want to draw from those actions. There is no other option at this point. The law is dead in the U.S.

Every public official in every state has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution. Willfully ignoring that oath whenever it suits them is not a faithful commission of their duties. While trampling on civil rights is a problem so is harboring known, convicted felons. If Wisteguens Charles had been deported in 2022, some of his future crimes wouldn't have happened. Instead we have people falling over themselves to have…

No one was harboring anything. Also, have a quote:

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” - H.L. Mencken

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#428

This would be pretty sad if she did help him evade ICE. He was in court for battery charges and in the country illegally. ICE arresting him does not interfere with any due process. Which he 100% needs to get (but arresting him is still part of that). What is left here thats worth protecting? Not someone we want in the country and the agents had a warrant for his arrest (court comes after that). I feel like this is a…

I'll correct my previous statement, it does appear in the legal brief about the judge being arrested that he was here illegally.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#429

Democratic states really need to start disallowing federal agents to operate within their borders and band together. Activate their respective national guards and make it happen. Yes, that means defying federal law. Yes that means exactly the consequences you want to draw from those actions. There is no other option at this point. The law is dead in the U.S.

Every public official in every state has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution. Willfully ignoring that oath whenever it suits them is not a faithful commission of their duties. While trampling on civil rights is a problem so is harboring known, convicted felons. If Wisteguens Charles had been deported in 2022, some of his future crimes wouldn't have happened. Instead we have people falling over themselves to have…

> Every public official in every state has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution.

"...against all enemies, foreign and domestic." (I'm quite aware, having taken -- and signed -- that oath many times.) That includes a federal executive that is repeatedly and consistently violating due process, engaging in the slave trade, exceeding Constitutional powers by bad-faith invocation of war powers with no actual war, and violating the first amendment by retaliating against unwelcome political speech in the context of and under the pretext of immigration enforcement.

Re: FBI arrests judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities

#430

This would be pretty sad if she did help him evade ICE. He was in court for battery charges and in the country illegally. ICE arresting him does not interfere with any due process. Which he 100% needs to get (but arresting him is still part of that). What is left here thats worth protecting? Not someone we want in the country and the agents had a warrant for his arrest (court comes after that). I feel like this is a…

There is nothing in any of the articles indicating he was here illegally. He's referred to in all the articles I've read as an immigrant. Not as illegal or undocumented. It's also reasonable to point out that removing someones legal immigration status, due to being "charged" with a crime, is a seriously slippery slope.

>He's referred to in all the articles I've read as an immigrant.

Well that just say everything about the articles you've been reading, doesnt it?

>Agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ICE ERO”) identified Flores-Ruiz as an individual who was not lawfully in the United States. A review of Flores-Ruiz’s Alien Registration File (“A-File”) indicated that Flores-Ruiz is a native and citizen of Mexico and that Flores-Ruiz had been issued an I-860 Notice and Order of Expedited Removal by United States Border Patrol Agents on January 16, 2013, and that Flores-Ruiz was thereafter removed to Mexico through the Nogales, Arizona, Port of Entry. There is no evidence in the AFile or DHS indices indicating that Flores-Ruiz sought or obtained permission to return to the United States

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...

I fully support him getting due process. But arresting him is part of that.

>It's also reasonable to point out that removing someones legal immigration status

Where did that happen?

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