Todd Lyons, acting director of US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), participates in a television interview outside the White House on Nov. 3, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
The top federal judge in Minnesota ordered the acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons, to personally appear in Minneapolis court on Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for his agency repeatedly violating court orders related to immigration enforcement actions.
The three-page order issued late Monday by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz was scathing, accusing federal immigration authorities of failing to comply with “dozens of court orders” in recent weeks, including one issued by the judge mandating a bond hearing for a detained immigrant.
“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result,” Schiltz wrote in the order.
“This Court’s patience is at an end,” Schiltz wrote.
The judge said that the Department of Homeland Security and Lyons’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is a division of DHS, “have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders,” and that they would take steps to honor those orders.
“Unfortunately, though, the violations continue,” Schiltz wrote.
“Accordingly, the Court will order Todd Lyons, the Acting Director of ICE, to appear personally before the Court and show cause why he should not be held in contempt of Court,” Schiltz wrote.
CNBC has requested comment from ICE on the order.
The judge called his order “an extraordinary step.”
“But the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed,” Schiltz wrote.
The order comes as Minnesota state officials press for ICE and other federal immigration authorities to cease aggressive actions rounding up undocumented people in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the state.
Schiltz’s order also came two days after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse on a Minneapolis street, and weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed mom-of-three Renee Good in her car. Both Pretti and Good were U.S. citizens.
Those, and other incidents, have sparked widespread outrage in the state and nationally.
The judge’s order does not relate to either shooting, but to his previous order that DHS and ICE grant a detained immigrant a bond hearing by last Wednesday.
That man remains detained despite Shiltz’s directive, according to a court filing by the man’s lawyer.
“This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks,” Schiltz wrote Monday.
“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong): The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home,” the judge wrote.
Schiltz said that if, before the hearing, the parties inform him that the detained man “has been released from custody, the Court will cancel the hearing and will not require Lyons to appear.”