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When a top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official took the stand in a Massachusetts courtroom this month, a federal judge expected to get the truth.
Instead, the judge witnessed an unraveling of false statements and half-truths.
In a stunning bit of testimony, Brian Sullivan, the acting assistant director of ICE’s Boston field office, which oversees all of New England, admitted that documents he submitted in court — after swearing he authored them and they were true — were not written by him and were false.
The testimony led the judge to call a second hearing, demanding to hear from who wrote the documents for Sullivan. Four federal judges have ordered ICE to immediately release detainees who had been held in Portland after it was discovered the agency either filed court documents that were false or ignored a judge’s order.
This isn’t isolated. In a national review of cases filed by immigrants against ICE, Politico found that more and more judges are growing frustrated. In Minnesota, which saw a massive enforcement bump beginning late last year, a judge noted ICE had disobeyed almost 100 orders in January alone, more than some agencies have violated “in their entire existence.”
“False statements and ignoring a judge’s order are both exceedingly rare,” Walter McKee, an Augusta-based criminal defense lawyer who argues often in front of federal judges in Maine, said. “I was shocked to see the reports that law enforcement would go so far as to lie to the court, and even more shocked that they would deliberately ignore a court’s order.”
The U.S. attorney’s offices in Massachusetts and Maine both declined to comment. In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is under, blamed “activist judges” for preventing the agency from removing “the worst of the worst” from the country.
“Activist judges are putting the lives of Americans directly at risk by ordering illegal aliens be released into the community,” a spokesperson said. “We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.”
The four Maine-related brushbacks from judges have come in legal challenges raised by the immigrants who allege unlawful detention without court hearings. These “habeas corpus” petitions have hit a historic high, with more than 18,000 having been made in federal courts across the country during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to ProPublica.
The Massachusetts judge was Leo Sorokin, who had already ordered that Laura Maria Guevara Peruano be released from ICE custody in January. The hearing in February was centered around whether or not ICE disobeyed an order barring her removal from Massachusetts. Up until late January, she had been held in the Cumberland County Jail.
Similarly, District Court Judge Stacey Neumann of Maine, issued a scathing ruling after ICE removed a man from her jurisdiction and then failed to release him when she told ICE to. She ordered ICE immediately release the man and barred his future detention as punishment for the agency’s “willful defiance” of court orders, her Feb. 9 ruling said.
In another Maine case, U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock Jr. ordered the immediate release of a woman after it was revealed ICE had supplied the federal prosecutor representing the agency in court with false information and the agency had defied an order not move the woman outside his jurisdiction.
The woman’s lawyer, Massachusetts-based Jacob Binnall, has had multiple clients ordered to be immediately released by federal judges because of ICE’s false statements or defiance of court orders. He said this isn’t something he’s ever encountered.
“It’s incredibly concerning that the government is lying,” he said. “These cases are about our most fundamental rights: not to be seized by the government without justification. It’s very scary to me.”
Another of his clients, Jaime Teo-Tenas, was the subject of an order from a Massachusetts judge who ordered him immediately returned to that state after his arrest in southern Maine on Jan. 25. ICE did not comply with that order for more than a week. In a Jan. 31 filing, the government said he was scheduled to be returned to Massachusetts the day prior but wasn’t due to “an error.” Teo-Tenas was eventually returned on Feb. 4.
Lawyers swear an oath whenever they are admitted to practice in a certain jurisdiction. Part of that oath is to uphold a judge’s orders even if that order isn’t what you wanted, said Kaylee Folster, a Bangor-based criminal defense lawyer.
“This is the be-all, end-all. The judge is telling you you must do this, and you’re choosing to violate it,” she said. “I can’t tell you, as an attorney, that you can’t follow a judge’s order. I can tell you if you choose not to follow it, there are repercussions.”