‘This job sucks’: DOJ lawyer asks to be held in contempt so she can sleep after judge accuses ICE of blowing court orders

A federal judge in Minnesota hauled government attorneys to his courtroom to find out why Immigration and Customs Enforcement is failing to comply with court orders to swiftly release wrongly detained immigrants arrested during the Trump administration’s surge.

District Judge Jerry R. Blackwell wanted to hear from the government why he shouldn’t be holding officials in contempt for their “alarming” failures.

A lawyer working for the Department of Justice told the judge Tuesday that “the system sucks.”

“I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” said Julie Le, according to Minnesota’s FOX 9, which observed Tuesday’s hearing. “The system sucks, this job sucks, I am trying with every breath I have to get you what I need.”

Le, a private practice attorney who volunteered to help the U.S. Attorney’s Office last month, has been named as the government’s attorney on more than 80 immigration cases since Donald Trump’s administration sent more than 3,000 federal officers into the state last month for Operation Metro Surge.

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She is simply “overwhelmed” by the number of legal challenges that are coming out of it.

“I am here to make sure the agency understands how important it is to comply with court orders,” said Le, who appeared visibly upset during the hearing.

Federal courts in the state are swimming in cases alleging unlawful arrests of immigrants and citizens alike swept up in the Trump administration’s mass deportation dragnet.

Judges across the ideological spectrum in courts across the country have spent months wrestling with high-profile lawsuits and cases that rarely, if ever, make headlines as thousands of immigrants challenge their arrest and detention.

ICE is also at the center of lawsuits alleging brutal and abusive conditions in its detention centers, while federal judges have described Homeland Security’s street-level operations as behavior that “shocks the conscience.”

Judge Blackwell expressed frustration with government attorneys after discovering indiscriminate arrests of people without criminal records who have been sitting in federal custody despite court orders for their immediate release.

He said the government is detaining too many detainees to keep up with its ability to adjudicate their cases.

“Some of this is of your own making because of non-compliance with orders,” the judge said, according to FOX 9.

Unlike federal district courts, immigration courts operate at the direction of the U.S. Attorney General and the Justice Department.

Le, who previously worked as an immigration court attorney for ICE, said the agency was not prepared to argue cases in federal court.

“We have no guidance or direction on what we need to do,” she said on Tuesday.

The Independent has requested comment from the Justice Department.

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Judge Blackwell is among a growing number of federal judges whose frustrations with ICE’s operations are beginning to boil over in courts across the country.

Minnesota’s chief federal judge was prepared to hold ICE director Todd Lyons in contempt of court last month over what he called the agency's “extraordinary” violations of court orders in the state.

District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz gave ICE one week to hold a bond hearing for an Ecuadorian man identified in court documents as Juan T.R., or release him from custody. When the deadline came and went, Schiltz said the court’s “patience is at an end” and ordered Lyons to testify.

ICE released the man, and Schlitz called off the hearing. But the judge unleashed his frustrations over an agency at the center of an avalanche of lawsuits and other cases overwhelming federal courts in Minnesota and elsewhere.

The judge listed 96 court orders from 74 different cases that ICE allegedly failed to follow since the beginning of the year, a count that was “almost certainly substantially understated,” he wrote last week.

Administration officials have rigorously defended the agency’s actions and appealed the rulings against them, broadly attacking them as the work of “activist” judges obstructing the president’s agenda.

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Meanwhile, top federal prosecutors in Minnesota are fleeing the office over mounting frustrations with the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda.

One month after several career prosecutors resigned under pressure from the Justice Department to investigate the widow of Renee Good, another eight career prosecutors are reportedly leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Veteran prosecutor Joseph Thompson, who was previously appointed by Trump to serve as Minnesota’s acting U.S. attorney and first assistant U.S. attorney, had overseen a sprawling fraud investigation at the center of the president’s surge of federal law enforcement officers in the state.

He was among at least six prosecutors who left last month.

Thompson reportedly objected to the Justice Department’s refusal to investigate Good’s killing as a civil rights matter and was outraged by an alleged demand to pursue a criminal investigation into Becca Good, according to people familiar with the matter speaking to The New York Times.

The Trump administration has pushed out dozens of career prosecutors across the country over refusals to drop cases or bring politically charged prosecutions against the president’s perceived enemies and longtime foes.

At least five Trump-appointed U.S. Attorneys have resigned over political interference from the Trump administration, including prosecutors in Manhattan who were pressured to drop a case against former Mayor Eric Adams and a U.S. attorney in Virginia tasked with prosecuting New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Last year, roughly 10,000 attorneys worked across the Justice Department and its components, including the FBI. The Trump administration has fired, forced out, or offered buyouts to roughly 5,500 attorneys and other Justice Department employees, according to Justice Connection, an advocacy group that has tracked departures.