Judge threatens to hold acting ICE director in contempt for flouting court orders

A federal judge in Minnesota on Monday threatened to hold the acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director in contempt for repeatedly ignoring court orders in immigration-related cases.

Chief U.S District Judge Patrick Schiltz ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in court this Friday to answer questions in the case of Juan Tobay Robles, who was arrested by federal immigration agents in Minnesota earlier this month.

Schiltz wants Lyons to explain why Tobay Robles was not given a bond hearing or has otherwise been released from detention within seven days of the judge’s order requiring the Trump administration to provide him that hearing, or release him.

“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his order Monday.

He added later, “The Court’s patience is at an end. The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step, but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed.”

Schiltz said he will hold a hearing Friday at 1:00 p.m. in Minneapolis, where Lyons “must appear in person to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for violating the Court’s January 14, 2026, order.”

If the parties file a notice indicating that Tobay Robles has been released from custody before the hearing, the judge said that the court will cancel the hearing and will not require Lyons to appear.

NBC News reached out to ICE and Tobay Robles’ attorney, Graham Blair Ojala-Barbour, for comment.

Ojala-Barbour filed a petition on Jan. 8 challenging his client’s detention. Tobay Robles was placed into ICE custody at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, a site of the agency’s St. Paul field office. Schiltz on the same day ordered the Trump administration to respond to his petition by Jan. 12 “certifying the true cause and proper duration” of Tobay Robles’ confinement.

Court documents show Tobay Robles first entered the U.S. illegally as a child. He is a citizen of Ecuador and entered the U.S. “without inspection as a minor, in or around 1999,” filings say.

The court said his case was one of “numerous recent cases” challenging the detention of “aliens who have been living in the United States unlawfully.”

On Jan. 14, the judge said that Tobay Robles was not subject to mandatory detention under U.S. law and said that the Trump administration could not deny his release. The judge ordered a bond hearing for Tobay Robles within seven days and said he must be “immediately released from detention.”

Ojala-Barbour notified the court on Jan. 23 that his client was still detained and no bond hearing had occurred.

In Schiltz’s latest order calling for Lyons to appear in court, he said that the practical consequence of the Trump administration’s failure to comply with court orders “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 judge said the court has been “extremely patient” with the administration, which he said has sent thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain undocumented immigrants without planning for the filings of hundreds of petitions challenging their detention or lawsuits “that were sure to result.”

President Donald Trump and top administration officials have faced widespread criticism and protests over immigration operations in Minnesota. The administration has been surging federal agents to the region since December — around the same time that conservative influencers resurfaced years-old allegations of day care fraud involving Somali immigrants.

Trump on Monday said he was dispatching White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota in the wake of the fatal shooting by a border patrol agent of Alex Pretti on Saturday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Homan will be “managing ICE Operations on the ground in Minnesota to continue arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”