Judge Summons ICE Chief to Court, Warns His “Patience Is at an End”

A federal judge in Minnesota is ordering the head of ICE to appear in court Friday to defend why his agency is ignoring court orders and the due-process rights of countless detainees.

Bush-appointed Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz on Monday called on acting Director Todd Lyons to testify and threatened him with contempt, stating that “the Court’s patience is at an end.”

Schlitz’s order came in the case of a man challenging his detention in Minnesota earlier this month. He was supposed to either be released or get a bond hearing a week after his January 14 detainment. By January 23, he hadn’t received either.

“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 wrote, noting that ICE had already ignored “dozens” of court orders.

Lyons and ICE have yet to respond.

“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply 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),” Schlitz said of Lyons and ICE. “The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home.”

This story has been updated.

Following backlash to the murder of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, President Trump held a two-hour-long meeting in the White House Monday evening with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Noticeably absent was White House adviser Stephen Miller.

Noem reportedly requested the meeting, The New York Times reports, and it took place amid rumors that her job is in jeopardy, along with that of Corey Lewandowski, her top aide and rumored boyfriend. Also attending the meeting were White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and communications director Stephen Cheung. Miller, who oversees the Trump administration’s immigration policies, did not take part.

The meeting is a sign that the criticism of the administration over its actions in Minneapolis is beginning to get to Trump. ICE is under the purview of Noem, as head of DHS, and she has been the face of mass deportations, as well as the violence committed by federal agents. Noem called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” over the weekend, although Leavitt tried to walk that statement back on Monday.

Miller called Pretti a “would-be assassin” following his killing, and Leavitt also refused to defend Miller’s comments. Meanwhile, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has been ordered to leave Minneapolis and return to his old job in California, and DHS has suspended his social media accounts. Is Miller also going to be sidelined, along with Noem?

The Trump administration is sending ICE agents to the Winter Olympics in Italy.

The Associated Press has reported that ICE will have a “security role” at the Milan games, and will apparently not conduct any immigration enforcement. This is a tall, high-profile task for an agency that shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month—and continues to wreak havoc in the city after federal agents killed Alex Pretti.

Giuseppe Sala, Milan’s mayor, offered a resounding rebuke of ICE’s upcoming presence in his city.

“This is a militia that kills, a militia that enters into the homes of people, signing their own permission slips,” Sala said on Italian radio, shortly before ICE’s role was confirmed. “It is clear they are not welcome in Milan, without a doubt.”

Vice President JD Vance, his wife Usha, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be present at the opening ceremony on February 6.

The Trump administration pledged to deport violent criminals—but instead, some of them have been on the payrolls of the federal government’s most aggressive agencies.

ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection employed at least 30 people with sexual and violent criminal histories in recent years, according to a report published Monday by the Ohio Immigrant Alliance with research from the Pacific Antifascist Collective.

At least 20 of those individuals committed offenses with underage victims, according to the report.

The 30 listed individuals have been charged with a wide litany of crimes, including gunpoint sexual assault, child sex trafficking, aggravated assault, robbery, rape, torture, kidnapping, sexual abuse of a minor, and possession and production of child sexual abuse materials.

Their transgressions occurred between 2015 and 2025, with the bulk of abuse happening within the last two years.

The delinquent officers include Minnesota-based ICE agent Alexander Steven Back, who was arrested in November for allegedly soliciting sex from a minor, in a multiagency sting referred to as “Operation Creep.”

“When he was arrested, he said, ‘I’m ICE, boys,’” Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges told reporters at the time of Back’s capture.

Elsewhere in the state, in June, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Timothy Ryan Gregg “attempted, coerced, and enticed a minor victim” in order to make child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota.

The majority of the listed offenders were located in Arizona, where at least nine agents committed sex crimes. Several of the offenders were charged, caught, or sentenced within the last year.

The most recently convicted officer within the folds of the Grand Canyon State was 30-year-old Aaron Thomas Mitchell, who was sentenced in March to 27 years in prison for kidnapping and raping a teenage girl.

Months later, in May, Yuma-based CBP agent Ramon Marquez was arrested and charged on multiple counts for abusing a 16-year-old participant in the state’s Customs and Border Protection Explorer Program.

Later that summer, another Arizona-based border agent, Bart Conrad Yager, was slammed with 24 felony charges, which included one count of attempted child sex trafficking and six counts related to his attempts to solicit prostitutes.

“There is a dangerous culture within these agencies, and that is evidenced by this horrifying list,” said Ohio Immigrant Alliance executive director Lynn Tramonte in a statement. “Congress must stop giving ICE and the Border Patrol a blank check to commit crimes against the public. DHS must answer for its faulty hiring, vetting, and re-verification processes. The public cannot trust law enforcement agencies that employ so many dangerous criminals, and refuse to police their own ranks.”

But the agencies’ seemingly endemic violence will likely only be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s slapdash recruitment tactics, which involve a “wartime recruitment” hiring spree that aims to take on as many as 10,000 new officers in the coming year. Part of that strategy includes spending millions on social media advertisements targeted at gun rights advocates, UFC enthusiasts, and manosphere podcast audiences.

Meanwhile, AI-induced slip-ups have “sent many new recruits into field offices without proper training,” according to law enforcement officials who spoke with NBC News last week.

Donald Trump’s administration is asking for permission to destroy evidence in its so-called investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Patrol agents.

The Trump administration filed a legal motion Monday opposing a federal judge’s order preventing it from tampering with evidence related to Pretti’s death, The New York Times reported. While it’s not uncommon for the Trump administration to oppose judges’ orders against it, this case seems particularly unnecessary—and suspicious.

U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud issued an order Saturday barring federal agents from “destroying or altering evidence,” in response to a request from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, or BCA. This order referred to evidence “removed from the scene” or evidence “taken into [the government’s] exclusive custody.”

In a signed declaration, BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said the Minneapolis Police Department had requested his agency’s presence at the scene but that when his agents arrived, Department of Homeland Security officers turned them away. DHS also did not respond to subsequent requests to access the scene.

“After the FBI cleared the scene without providing the BCA access, local and state law enforcement officers were unable to hold the scene, and it was overrun by individuals in the area,” Evans said. “The BCA was thus unable to examine the scene.”

The BCA has historically handled investigations into shootings involving federal law enforcement, and has typically done so without federal involvement, according to Evans.

Clearly, DHS is taking unprecedented actions to control the investigation into the second broad daylight killing of a civilian by its agents in just the past month. When coupled with Customs and Border Patrol’s efforts to shield its officers from accountability, and Trump officials’ desperation to change the subject, it seems we may be looking at a bona fide cover-up.

Meanwhile, what we know about Pretti’s senseless killing is limited to the footage captured by multiple eyewitnesses. Video from several angles of the incident showed that Pretti was tackled by multiple federal agents after he approached a protester who’d been pepper-sprayed. When the agents realized the man they’d beaten and pinned to the ground was armed, they took his gun, and two of the agents shot him roughly 10 times.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Monday that the deadly incident was captured by body cameras worn by multiple DHS agents involved in the shooting. It’s not clear whether this footage will be released to the public.