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The FBI arrested<\/span> a sitting judge in a Milwaukee County court in Wisconsin on Friday, claiming that she obstructed immigration enforcement agents from detaining an undocumented immigrant in her courtroom.<\/p>\n Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan\u2019s arrest<\/a> is not only the latest escalation in Donald Trump\u2019s fascist deportation program, it also marks the administration\u2019s eagerness to take aim at any and all constraints on its power to act.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse,\u201d wrote<\/a> FBI director Kash Patel in a post on X. Patel added that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents \u201cchased down the perp on foot and he\u2019s been in custody since.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the Trump administration, due process and an independent judiciary are hurdles to be kicked down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Dugan faces charges of obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the U.S., as well as a charge of concealing an individual to prevent their discovery and arrest. According to reports, the judge escorted a man sought by ICE and his defense attorney through a non-public jury door.<\/p>\n In Wisconsin, there\u2019s no explicit law dictating that judges must allow immigration enforcement into their courtrooms. Members of the judiciary nationwide have consistently stressed that the presence of ICE agents interferes with legal proceedings, as defendants fearing deportation miss court appearances for fear of ICE detention.<\/p>\n For the Trump administration, however, court appearances are beside the point: Due process and an independent judiciary are hurdles to be kicked down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the absence of any meaningful opposition party challenges, activists and organizers are struggling to gain ground in building robust resistance in the face of extraordinary repression. Unions, for their part, are disempowered. That has left courts as one of the few sites<\/a> of actionable pushback on Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n That we are left with only the courts is no good thing; the U.S. criminal legal system with its carceral designs<\/a> has never been suitable terrain<\/a> for achieving justice<\/a>. And our current Supreme Court has been a regular aid to the far right and the president\u2019s authoritarian ambitions.<\/p>\n Whatever limitations there are to Trump\u2019s expansive power grabs, however, must be championed. Judges willing to push back on the administration\u2019s unconstitutional and illegal behavior are a lifeline.<\/p>\n Just last week, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a new round of mass deportations of Venezuelan immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act. Judge James Boasberg has also recently found probable cause <\/a>to hold the government in contempt for defying his orders to halt previous deportations to El Salvador\u2019s prison camp<\/a> under the act.<\/p>\n ICE on Friday also announced it will restore thousands of students\u2019 previously terminated records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, after dozens of cases were brought by students led by the government to believe that their legal student immigration statuses had been revoked<\/a>.<\/p>\n The SEVIS case is instructive. Again and again, judges sided with the students. One excoriated the government\u2019s actions as \u201cKafkaesque.\u201d Dozens of rulings have, at least temporarily, been a breakwater against Trump\u2019s tidal wave of executive orders and his modus operandi of chaos, speed, and relentlessness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n