Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), gives a television interview outside the White House in Washington, DC, on November 3, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
Minnesota’s highest-ranking federal judge on Friday ordered acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in person in a Minneapolis courthouse to explain why the acting ICE director should not be held in contempt of court for repeatedly violating court orders related to immigration enforcement actions.
A three-page order issued late Monday by Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schultz scathes federal immigration authorities for failing to comply with “dozens of court orders” in recent weeks, including the judge’s order mandating bail hearings for detained immigrants.
“This court has been extremely patient with the defendants, even though they decided to send thousands of personnel to Minnesota to detain aliens and made no provision to deal with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that are sure to result,” Schultz said in his order.
“This court’s patience is running thin,” Schultz wrote.
The judge said the Department of Homeland Security and Lyon Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of DHS, “have continually assured the court that they recognize their obligation to comply with the court’s orders” and will take steps to comply with those orders.
“But unfortunately, violations continue,” Schultz wrote.
“Accordingly, the court will order Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in court in person and show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court,” Schultz wrote.
CNBC has reached out to ICE for comment on the order.
The judge called his order an “unusual step.”
“However, the extent of ICE’s violations of court orders is equally extraordinary, and smaller measures have been attempted and failed,” Schultz wrote.
The order comes as Minnesota officials are pressuring ICE and other federal immigration authorities to stop aggressive roundups of illegal aliens in Minneapolis and other parts of the state.
Schultz’s order also came two days after federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street and weeks after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, in her car. Preti and Good were both U.S. citizens.
These and other incidents sparked widespread outrage in the state and nationally.
The judge’s order is not related to either shooting, but is related to an earlier order by DHS and ICE to grant bail hearings to immigrants detained as of last Wednesday.
The man remains in custody despite Schiltz’s instructions, according to a court filing by the man’s attorney.
“This is one of dozens of court orders that defendants have failed to comply with in recent weeks,” Schultz wrote Monday.
“The practical consequences of a defendant’s failure to comply will almost always be significant hardship for the alien, many of whom have lived and worked in the United States legally for years and have done nothing wrong at all: the alien’s detention will be extended, the alien who should remain in Minnesota will be flown to Texas, or the alien who was flown to Texas will be released there and told to find a way to return home,” the judge wrote.
Shilts said if both parties were told before the hearing that the detained man had been “released from custody,” the court would stop the hearing and not require Lyons to appear in court.
