Justice Department Asks Two Minnesota Judges to Step Aside From Immigration Cases

The US Justice Department is asking two federal judges in Minnesota to remove themselves from separate immigration related cases, arguing that comments they gave to The New York Times about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown call their impartiality into question.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward filed the motions on Tuesday, October 20, targeting US District Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, Reuters reported. "Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our Nation's judiciary," the department said in a statement on Wednesday. It said the judges' on the record participation in what it called a highly partisan newspaper article, along with later public comments by Schiltz, calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases.

The two cases

The motion against Schiltz concerns a civil case in which the government seeks to revoke the citizenship of Salah Osman Ahmed, a Somali American man who pleaded guilty in 2009 to providing material support to terrorists and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. The department announced its effort to revoke his citizenship in May. A hearing on the recusal request in his case is scheduled for November 23.

The motion against Tunheim concerns the prosecution of Hester Sophia Weihmann, a South African national and lawful permanent resident accused of falsely claiming citizenship to vote in the 2024 election. She has pleaded not guilty to both charges in the case.

The interview behind the motions

Both requests stem from a New York Times article published on September 17 about Operation Metro Surge, the administration's immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota last winter, and the flood of cases it sent to the federal court there.

Schiltz was the district's chief judge during the surge. In an order in January, he took US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to task for violating nearly 100 court orders as the court handled cases from people who said they were unlawfully detained. He told the newspaper that what happened in his court "created a grave threat to the rule of law."

Tunheim told the newspaper that immigration agents were not, in his view, arresting people who were dangerous criminals on the street.

The motions follow a judicial misconduct complaint the department filed on September 30 with the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit against Schiltz, Tunheim and other Minnesota district judges over the same interviews.

What happens next

Rebecca Parks, a spokesperson for the US District Court for the District of Minnesota, declined to comment, saying the judges could not comment on matters pending in the court. Last month she told Reuters the judges had acted well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to The New York Times.

Schiltz was appointed by President George W. Bush and once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Tunheim was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Both judges are on senior status, a form of semi-retirement.

The requests mark another open clash between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary over immigration enforcement, this time over whether judges who spoke publicly about an enforcement surge can keep hearing the cases that came out of it.