ICE violated 56 court orders through mid-February, defying judges

Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox filed a declaration in New Jersey federal court identifying 547 immigration cases filed since early December 2025

In 56 of those cases, federal authorities did not comply with a judicial order

Fox is a top adviser to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and has been helping lead the U.S Attorney Office in New Jersey.

The 56 violations broke down into specific categories: 17 transfers of detainees to other states after judges ordered them not to be moved, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings, 6 missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 10 failures to produce evidence demanded by courts, and 3 instances of imposing release conditions that courts had prohibited.

In December 2025, ICE deported Jorge Moran-Rodriguez to Peru despite a judicial injunction specifically prohibiting his removal. Fox described the deportation as an inadvertent administrative oversight by the local ICE custodian. Moran-Rodriguez reportedly chose to stay in Peru rather than return to the United States after the wrongful deportation.

U.S

District Judge Michael Farbiarz in New Jersey triggered the accounting after ICE transferred a detainee out of his jurisdiction despite his direct order

Farbiarz wrote that the violation he observed was not fully an outlier and that judicial orders should never be violated He ordered the government to file an affidavit by February 25 detailing its procedures for complying with court orders.

In Minnesota, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz found ICE violated 96 court orders in 74 cases during January 2026 alone

Schiltz, a George W

Bush appointee who clerked for conservative icon Antonin Scalia, wrote that ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence His conservative credentials make the rebuke harder to dismiss as partisan.

Schiltz ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to personally appear in court to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for violating a January 14 order in the case of detained immigrant Juan Hugo Tobay Robles. ICE released Tobay Robles from a Texas facility before the hearing, leading Schiltz to cancel the contempt proceeding -- but the judge said the release does not end the court concerns.

The Minnesota violations happened during Operation Metro Surge, which the Trump administration launched in December 2025 and expanded in January 2026 as the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out. The operation deployed thousands of federal agents to the Twin Cities area and resulted in over 4,000 arrests. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with Minneapolis and Saint Paul, sued to stop the operation as unconstitutional.

Legal scholars say the pattern raises fundamental separation-of-powers questions. Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck described it as federal judges mounting a rear-guard action to hold the line against increasing lawlessness on the part of the Trump administration. The Conversation reported that ICE actions in Minnesota alone implicated potential violations of the First, Second, Fourth, and Tenth Amendments.