Justice Department seeks recusal of two Minnesota judges in immigration-related cases
Rights & JusticeWell-coveredThe Facts
- The Justice Department sought recusal of Minnesota federal Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim.
- Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward filed the recusal motions.
- The department cited the judges' New York Times comments about immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
- The Justice Department argued the comments created doubts about the judges' impartiality.
- Schiltz's case concerns a government effort to revoke Salah Osman Ahmed's U.S. citizenship.
- Tunheim's case involves allegations that Hester Sophia Weihmann voted unlawfully as a noncitizen.
- The recusal requests follow Justice Department ethics complaints against the two judges and five colleagues.
- The courts have not yet ruled on the recusal motions.
Context
Why does the Justice Department want the judges removed?
The department argues that public comments Schiltz and Tunheim made to The New York Times about immigration enforcement in Minnesota create an appearance of bias and call their ability to be impartial into question. CBS News Star Tribune news.bloomberglaw.c…
What cases are involved?
Schiltz is assigned a case in which the government seeks to revoke Salah Osman Ahmed's citizenship. Tunheim is presiding over a case alleging that legal permanent resident Hester Sophia Weihmann voted unlawfully. MPR News EconoTimes
What happens next?
The federal courts must decide whether either judge will remain on the assigned case or be replaced by another judge. Star Tribune MPR News EconoTimes
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Both judges discussed immigration enforcement in Minnesota with the New York Times before the Justice Department moved to recuse them from related citizenship and voting cases.
- Where Left and Right split
- The left and the right split on whether the judges' remarks or the DOJ's motion threatens the bench.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is one of trust in institutions: it turns on whether judicial impartiality is safeguarded by courts' own rulings on recusal or has already been compromised by speaking to the press, a question the facts alone cannot settle.
How left and right read it
An independent bench is worth defending precisely when the people on the wrong end of it have the least power — here, a man whose citizenship the government wants revoked and a woman accused of voting unlawfully as a noncitizen. Courts should say so.
“The motions, filed against Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, are an escalation of the Justice Department's ongoing campaign against judges who it claims have treated the Trump administration unfairly.” — CBS News
A judge's authority rests on the public believing he decides cases rather than causes, which is why the bench speaks through rulings and not through newspapers. Schiltz and Tunheim talked to the Times about immigration enforcement in Minnesota, yet now sit over a citizenship-revocation case and an unlawful-voting case squarely inside that subject. The appearance standard exists for exactly this. Can seven judges be commentators and referees both?
The judges' own words become the evidence in the DOJ's motion, pitting the appearance standard against the stakes for vulnerable litigants.
The receipts — 11 sources
Independent coverage (11)
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