FBI Director Kash Patel’s announcement Friday that federal authorities arrested a judge over an immigration dispute marks a stunning development in the Trump administration’s power struggle with the courts — and mirrors a similar case from President Donald Trump’s first term.
In 2018, Massachusetts state District Court Judge Shelley Joseph and a court officer were accused of helping an undocumented migrant sneak out of the Newton District Court in Newton, Massachusetts, before an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer could detain him. The man was arrested on narcotics charges and had been deported from the U.S. twice, prosecutors said at the time.
Joseph was later indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice and pleaded not guilty.
At the time Joseph was charged, then-state Attorney General Maura Healey, now the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, claimed it represented “a radical and politically motivated attack on our state and the independence of our courts.”
Joseph’s attorney at the time, Thomas Hoopes, accused then-U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling of “political bias” in court documents — pointing to a Boston Herald op-ed he authored — and accusing him of leaking confidential information to the media.
Unlike the case Friday, however, Joseph surrendered to authorities. And federal prosecutors eventually dropped the charges against her in 2022. Joseph was instead referred to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, a state agency charged with investigating allegations of misconduct among those admitted to the bench.
Late last year, the commission filed formal charges against Joseph with the state’s highest court, a surprisingly forceful step for a body that has only gone so far five other times since 2000.
The Wisconsin judge arrested Friday, Hannah Dugan, was charged with felony counts of obstruction and concealing a person from arrest. She too was accused of helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest. Federal authorities allege she sent agents away from her courtroom and then led the immigrant out of it via a private exit.
Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers criticized the Trump administration for attempting to “undermine our judiciary at every level, including flat-out disobeying the highest court in the land and threatening to impeach and remove judges who do not rule in their favor.”
