Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) says the Trump administration’s arrest of a Wisconsin county judge for allegedly helping an immigrant avoid law enforcement is a “gravely serious and drastic move” that threatens to “breach” the separation of powers between the branches of government.
Baldwin issued her statement Friday in response to the FBI’s arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on charges that she obstructed immigration agents attempting to detain an immigrant who lacked legal status and appeared in her courtroom earlier this month.
The judge allegedly steered Mexican national Eduardo Flores Ruiz out of her courtroom while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents waited in a hallway to take him into custody.
“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders and arresting a sitting judge, this president is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.
“While details of this exact case remain minimal, this action fits into the deeply concerning pattern of this president’s lawless behavior and undermining courts and Congress’s checks on his power,” she said.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on the social platform X that Dugan had “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.”
Dugan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Dries on Friday and is charged with two felonies for helping Flores Ruiz.