The Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota has exposed a severe rift between the Justice Department and ICE, detonated the already crumbling trust between the administration and the courts and led to the dozens of detentions the courts have said are illegal.
A dramatic breakdown by a Justice Department attorney in a Minneapolis courtroom Tuesday laid bare the crisis roiling the Trump administration as it continues to mass arrest immigrants without the corresponding resources to detain them humanely, process their legal cases and comply with federal court orders.
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“The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need,” prosecutor Julie Le told a judge as he demanded to know why his orders were being defied. “Sometime I wish you would just hold me in contempt, your honor, so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep,” she added, according to a transcript obtained by POLITICO.
Part of the problem, Le said, is that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials simply don’t respond when she or other Justice Department lawyers try to get them to obey the courts.
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Shortly after the candid courtroom exchange on Tuesday, Le was removed from her temporary post and returned to the Department of Homeland Security, where she works on immigration cases within the executive branch, said a Justice Department official who was granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
But it’s clear that the cases Le handled are not outliers. Court records and transcripts reveal widespread miscommunication, bungling of court filings and suddenly rampant violations of judges’ orders. The administration’s handling of its immigration operation provoked a five-alarm emergency among federal judges in the state, who have grown increasingly frustrated at what they see as overt defiance — caused not by the local prosecutors in Minnesota but by DOJ and DHS leadership in Washington. Contempt threats are now almost routine.