Judge demands investigation after ICE posts ‘dangerous’ press release claiming she ‘thwarted Trump’s mandate’

Donald Trump’s administration is facing an investigation after withholding information from a federal judge and then attacking her with an inflammatory press release.

A federal court in Rhode Island has been asked to investigate immigration officials who instructed a government lawyer to withhold information about an international arrest warrant for a detainee accused of murder. After a judge ordered his release, Homeland Security officials labeled her an “activist” who tried to “thwart” the president’s agenda.

District Judge Melissa R. DuBose, who was appointed by Joe Biden, ordered the release of a Dominican immigrant last month while he challenges his removal from the country. DHS then published a press release accusing her of knowingly releasing a man wanted for murder.

During a court hearing on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Bolan admitted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told him not to disclose the existence of an international warrant for the arrest of Bryan Rafael Gomez. The DHS statement is “simply not true,” Bolan said.

In a follow-up hearing on Tuesday, Bolan said his office and other Department of Justice attorneys repeatedly made “very firm, very direct” requests for DHS to take down the press release from its website. “I regret to inform you it’s still up,” he told the judge.

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The administration’s actions are “egregious enough” to warrant a former referral for disciplinary action, according to DuBose. “The lack of candor in this court has to be addressed and be fully investigated so we don’t have anything like this happening again,” she said.

The episode marks the latest escalation of the Trump administration’s attacks against a judiciary it believes is insufficiently deferential to the president’s agenda, which has prompted an avalanche of lawsuits from immigrants alleging violations of their due process rights as the government moves quickly to arrest and deport tens of thousands of people from the country.

In last month’s press release, Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis called Judge DuBose an “activist judge” who “released this wanted murderer back into American communities.”

“This is yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities,” she said. “Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of criminal illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country.”

In a court filing last week, Bolan said he was “informed” by ICE that he “could not disclose” the pending overseas charge and that “a legitimate law enforcement reason prevented disclosure.”

During Monday’s hearing, DuBose said the government’s withholding of information about the case amounted to “a serious breakdown in the ethical codes” that could be grounds for sanctions.

“There was a decision made not to be truthful to the court,” she said.

Bolan said he was “very sorry and terribly embarrassed.”

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The administration’s claims about the arrest warrant, however, had already been publicly disclosed by the administration elsewhere, DuBose noted.

The “patently false” and “completely erroneous and dangerous” press release “puts people at risk,” she said Monday.

“It’s a threat to judicial security,” she added. “I’m not trying to make this political … It’s also very important that the public has the facts. As long as this particular post is out there, it’s setting up a false narrative.”

Frank J. Perry, the chief deputy clerk of the Rhode Island federal courts, said in a statement that the DHS press release was “inflammatory” and “risks inciting threats against members of the judiciary.”

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Trump and administration officials have spent more than a year publicly raging against federal judges who have ruled against them. The president himself has demanded the impeachment of the top judge in Washington, D.C., and raged against his own appointees to the Supreme Court.

More than 100 immigration court judges have been fired or forced out since Trump returned to the White House, which has been accused of pressuring judges to deny relief to immigrants seeking asylum and other legal protections to boost the president’s deportation numbers.

Gomez, the immigrant at the center of the Rhode Island case, has been ordered back into detention while the legal challenge against his arrest and removal plays out.

DuBose ordered a bond hearing within seven days of his re-detention, and she is “going to let that process play out in immigration court where it is best suited,” she said Tuesday.

The Independent has requested comment from DHS.

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