REPORT: Judge Threatens To Close Courtroom After FBI Arrested Jurist For Allegedly Helping Illegal Migrant Avoid ICE

A Wisconsin judge said Saturday that she may not hold court without professional support after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a fellow judge Friday for allegedly interfering with an immigration arrest, Wisconsin Right Now reported.

Monica Isham, a Sawyer County Circuit Court judge, wrote to state judges throughout Wisconsin voicing her opposition to the arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, the outlet reported, sharing what it described as screenshots of Isham’s email to the judges. Isham also requested support.

“Yesterday, Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee County stood on her Oath in the very building she swore to uphold it and she was arrested and charged with felonies for it. Enough is enough,” the email reads in part.

“I have no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process as BOTH of the constitutions we swore to support requires. Should I start raising bail money?” the email continued.

“If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court in Branch 2 in Sawyer County. I will not put myself or my staff who may feel compelled to help me or my community in harms way,” she said, according to the email.

A judge in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, Monica Isham, is threatening not to hold court because of Hannah Dugan’s arrest. She also wrote that she has “no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp” and she is threatening to… pic.twitter.com/TRHFA44PXq

— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) April 26, 2025

The email’s author described herself as having been “elected as the first woman, first Native American, first minority all together, to serve as a circuit court judge in Sawyer County,” according to the screenshots.

Alleging that she had endured a spate of workplace discrimination since Jan. 20 and citing Dugan’s arrest, the email’s author adds, “I no longer feel protected or respected as a Judge in this administration.

“If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court in Branch 2 in Sawyer County. I will not put myself or my staff who may feel compelled to help me or my community in harms [sic] way.”

Isham — a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Native American tribe — is the first judge in the newly formed Branch 2 of the Sawyer County court, according to an interview. She also is the first member of the LCO Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to become a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge, and the second female LCO member to sit on a circuit court in the state.

Dugan was presiding over a criminal case April 18 involving Mexican illegal immigrant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was accused of domestic violence, when the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents appeared in the court to arrest Flores-Ruiz after his hearing, according to court documents shared by CNN.

“[V]isibly angry” and saying the situation was “absurd,” Dugan confronted some of the agents and ultimately referred them to the chief judge, the FBI alleged.

Dugan allegedly escorted the defendant and his lawyer out through a “jury door” that went to a private area of the courthouse where arrests could not take place, the documents stated. (RELATED: ‘Nonpartisan’ Judge Tied To Liberal Activism Arrested For Allegedly Helping Migrant Evade ICE Arrest)

The prosecutor in the case, who had been waiting for Flores-Ruiz’s case to be called, later learned that Flores-Ruiz’s case had been adjourned, the FBI said.

The agents spotted Flores-Ruiz just outside the courthouse and arrested him shortly after he bolted away from them, according to the court documents.

Dugan faces two charges of obstructing an immigration arrest and concealing the suspect, the documents revealed.