Wisconsin’s highest-ranking Democratic officeholders, Gov. Tony Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, issued statements attacking President Donald Trump for arresting a state judge in Milwaukee last week. The facts of the case show not only that the arrest was justified but also that Democrats still have no interest in doing what voters want, which is enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a citizen of Mexico, was arrested for illegally crossing the southern border near Nogales, Arizona, in 2013 and was issued a valid order of removal by Border Patrol. Some time later, he illegally entered the United States again but was not caught and established a residence in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
On March 12 this year, Flores-Ruiz was arrested by Milwaukee police for hitting his roommate approximately 30 times and hitting his roommate’s girlfriend when she tried to intervene in their dispute over loud music.
An ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officer in Milwaukee ran Flores-Ruiz’s fingerprints and found that he was illegally in the country. On April 18, six federal agents, including an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, a Customs and Border Protection officer, and two FBI agents, went to Milwaukee County Circuit Court to arrest Flores-Ruiz after his hearing on the battery charges stemming from his March arrest.
The hearing did not happen, however, because when Judge Hannah Dugan heard there was an ICE agent in the hall outside, she left her courtroom to confront him. She first asked the ICE officer to leave. When he told her the hallway was public space and that he had every right to be there, Dugan told him to see the chief judge.
While the ICE officer talked to the chief judge, who agreed that hallways are public places where ICE officers may make arrests, Dugan returned to her chambers. Instead of conducting judicial business, she snuck Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out of a courtroom side entrance to help him evade ICE. Flores-Ruiz was arrested outside the courthouse by one of the other agents after a foot chase.
Dugan said nothing publicly about the incident, leaving the City of Milwaukee attorney who was there to prosecute the battery charges confused when the judge ended business for the day without calling Flores-Ruiz’s case. The two witnesses there to testify against Flores-Ruiz, and the victims witness specialist hired by the city to help the prosecution, were also not informed by Dugan that she had let Flores-Ruiz go free.
Dugan not only abandoned her duty to preside over the case against Flores-Ruiz for battery and obstructed justice by trying to prevent his lawful deportation, but Democrats had only praise for her.
“In this country, people who are suspected of criminal wrongdoing are innocent until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt,” Evers said in response to Dugan’s arrest by the Department of Justice last week. “I have deep respect for the rule of law, our nation’s judiciary, and the importance of judges making decisions impartially without fear or favor.”
“The president’s administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power,” Baldwin said, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) adding, “The administration’s arrest of a sitting judge in Wisconsin is a drastic move that threatens the rule of law.”
AN OVERDUE INVESTIGATION OF ACTBLUE
The Democrats, who kept intoning that “no one is above the law” while defending the political prosecutions of Donald Trump, can’t condemn a sitting judge for obstructing the enforcement of immigration law and helping an illegal immigrant evade domestic abuse charges brought in her own courtroom. This should help the public see today’s Democrats clearly. They care more about opposing Trump and helping illegal immigrants enter and stay in the U.S. than they do about protecting citizens by enforcing the law.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
