Trump administration is sending ‘a message to chill the judiciary’ with Wisconsin judge’s arrest, her peer says

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

(CNN) — A peer of the Wisconsin judge who the FBI arrested for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid federal immigration enforcement said her arrest is meant to intimidate the judiciary by the Trump administration.

“I think they’re trying to send a message to chill the judiciary,” Wisconsin Appellate Judge Pedro Colón said in a Saturday interview with CNN’s Kyung Lah, adding, “It speaks more I think to the politics and sort of the symbolic gestures of power by people who don’t really appreciate the Constitution, don’t really appreciate the rule of law.”

“They want to create circumstances and a culture where people are unsettled about their rights, about their duties and about the way we go about our jobs,” Colón continued.

Colón’s comments came a day after the FBI charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction and concealing the individual from arrest.

Colón said he’s known Dugan for more than 15 years through the legal community, and described her as “an unbiased, ethical judge.”

Since President Donald Trump took office this year, his administration has cracked down on immigration and Dugan’s arrest underscores its aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.

According to court documents, witnesses said Dugan confronted plainclothes federal agents on April 18 who were attempting to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant who had been deported from the United States in 2013. Flores-Ruiz was set to be in Dugan’s courtroom for an unrelated case.

Dugan allegedly demanded that the agents leave a public hallway in the courthouse and said they required a different type of warrant to make the arrest, according to the documents. She then allegedly directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to leave through a “jury door,” which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse, court documents say.

Colón, a sitting judge, said Dugan’s arrest is an example of the Trump administration wanting the judicial system to “essentially succumb to their power and their policy priorities independent of Constitutional rights and what other rights people have.”

“I think what they want to do is to essentially have the judiciary not only in Wisconsin but the independent judiciaries of the state … essentially succumb to their power and their policy priorities independent of Constitutional rights and what other rights people have,” he said.

“That’s not the way we do business in a democratic, in a democratic country. The reality is we sort out Constitutional rights and we don’t allow anyone including the government, including Mr. Patel, including anyone to have more rights than anybody else,” Colón added, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel, who posted a photo of Dugan handcuffed and being escorted to a vehicle by law enforcement.

Colón raised concerns about the impacts of Dugan’s arrest on the court and the people who come there to seek justice.

“What they are essentially is creating is chaos,” Colón said. “I expect less people will appear for their criminal appearances in court. I expect that victims will be afraid to come to court.”

When asked by Lah why Americans should care about Dugan’s arrest amid the influx of news coming out of the White House, Colón issued a stark warning on the threat the Trump administration poses to democracy.

“Why should you care?” Colón asked, “Because if our Constitutional structure continues to fray in the way they are intentionally fraying it, we will not have a working democracy.”

CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz, Michael Williams and Devan Cole contributed to this report.

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