A Minnesota federal judge ordered a government attorney to be held in civil contempt of court for violating an order requiring the Justice Department to turn over identification documents to a man who was ordered released from ICE custody, further escalating tension between the judiciary and Trump administration over immigration cases.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino ordered the attorney, Matthew Isihara, to pay $500 each day until the petitioner’s identification documents are returned to him.
Isihara is a military attorney currently detailed to assist the Justice Department as a special U.S. attorney, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The plaintiff, Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, was arrested in mid-January, part of a monthslong immigration crackdown in Minnesota. On Feb. 9, after the man sued for his release, Provinzino ordered Soto Jimene to be released from ICE custody, finding that he was unlawfully detained because immigration officials did not have an administrative warrant to justify his detention.
She ordered his release “without imposing any conditions of release” and ordered “all property” to be returned to him. She also said he must be released in Minnesota, where court documents show he has lived since 2018 with his lawful permanent resident spouse.
On Tuesday, the judge scheduled a show cause hearing with lawyers for both parties after Provinzino said that the Justice Department had failed to release Soto Jimenez in Minnesota as required by her order — although Provinzino’s filing did not specify where he was released — and failed to return Soto Jimenez’s property to him. The judge also said the government failed to provide her with a status update.
The Justice Department, Isihara and an attorney for Soto Jimenez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Provinzino isn’t the first federal judge in Minnesota to accuse the government of violating court orders in immigration cases. In some cases, judges have accused federal agencies of slow-walking their orders to release migrants, releasing people in other parts of the country or making people wear ankle monitors despite orders to release them with no conditions.
Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota, accused ICE of violating court orders nearly 100 times in the month of January.
In recent months, the federal court system has been flooded by requests for people to be released from immigration detention. Those requests — known as “habeas corpus petitions” — have spiked as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration arrests and sought to detain many migrants indefinitely while their deportation cases are pending.
Those requests have caused what one U.S. official described to CBS News as a “tsunami” of immigration cases that have strained the Justice Department’s resources.
The issue is especially acute in Minnesota, where the U.S. Attorney’s Office has grappled with a wave of resignations by experienced prosecutors. The Justice Department has tried to augment that office with prosecutors from neighboring states and military attorneys.
Isihara, a member of the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s corps, has been listed as an attorney on more than 100 cases filed against the government since last month, federal court records show.
Another person who was temporarily assigned to help the Justice Department with habeas petitions in Minnesota, ICE lawyer Julie Le, has been assigned to more than 80 cases. The strain on federal resources burst into public view in one of Le’s cases earlier this month, when she responded to frustrations by a federal judge by saying during a hearing: “The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need.”
Le, who was later removed from her Justice Department detail, invited the judge to hold her in contempt of court “so that I can have a full 24 hours sleep.”
