The Left-Wing Judge Who Hid an Armed Venezuelan Gang Member in His Home Shows the Judiciary is Escalating its War With Trump Over Illegal Immigration

The current lawfare campaign waged against the Trump administration’s plans to deport violent criminals here in the US illegally was kicked up a notch last week with the arrest by the FBI of not one but two judges for their support of violent gangbanging illegals.

So far lawfare has consisted of tying up cases in Federal Court with far Left enthusiastic judges passing ‘nationwide injunctions’ on any and all of the Trump administration efforts to deport the illegals. But one has to acknowledge the fact that there are various rogue judges who, with a cry of ‘we’re doing our part’, are deploying their own unique strategies in defying immigration laws.

First up on April 24th was the arrest of Judge Joel Cano, a magistrate in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. He was caught back in March sheltering Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, an illegal alien from Venezuela and a member of the awful Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, in his guest house, along with two other unnamed illegals. Tren de Aragua is probably the most notorious of the eight gangs the Trump administration has labelled transnational terrorists due to its engagement in human trafficking and its predilection for extreme violence such as burying enemies alive. It has its roots in Venezuela, but has now become a serious threat to many neighbouring countries in the Americas as it has entered these countries disguised among the eight million Venezuelans that have fled the usual economic hardships of any socialist country. More than a million of these are now in the USA courtesy of the Biden administration’s immigration policies – an astonishing 3.5% of the entire Venezuelan population. A few days ago the FBI claimed that the Venezuelan Government had organised some of this migration in order to undermine public safety in the USA.

Ortega-Lopez crossed the border illegally in December 2023. He was picked up by the ‘Biden’ border patrols and then let loose with a notice to appear in immigration court as was their wont at the time. The judge and his wife took him in as a handyman, even though, or because, he was garnished with Tren de Aragua clothing and tattoos, and seems to have spent most of his time texting and calling other Tren de Aragua folks as opposed to putting up shelves. Hammers and power drills seem to have been in short supply at Casa Cano, so he was given several firearms instead. He was then arrested in February for possession of a firearm as an illegal alien.

The Canos were arrested April 24th after a three month investigation on charges of destroying evidence relating to Ortega-Lopez’s case. While Ortega-Lopez is facing 15 years in prison for possessing weapons as an illegal, the prospect for the Canos also seems bleak. Cano has already resigned from his judgeship while the New Mexico Supreme Court has made sure he cannot stink up the joint again by banning him from all judicial activities. The charge under investigation is very serious as Cano had destroyed their guest’s cell phone which was believed to have texts and other communications linking him with Tren de Aragua. NBC local news station WPMI quoted a former ICE Field Office Director John Fabbricatore: “Dona Ana County has been a hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking for many, many years. To see that a judge would allow this to happen. It’s very concerning. What else has the judge been doing?” What indeed?

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the Cano arrest in a press release on April 25th, which also contained the shenanigans of our second judge caught sheltering illegals, Judge Hannah Dugan. She is a Wisconsin circuit court judge for Milwaukee. On April 18th she was hearing a case against an illegal, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was on trial for savagely beating his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend in an argument over music. His fingerprints were released to federal databases such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where ICE realised he was an illegal who had already been deported once before. Immigration legal proceedings are not part of the judicial branch of government, but are under the purview of the executive branch (or the President) as is ICE of course. ICE got a warrant for his arrest, and together with the FBI, also showed up to Dugan’s Courthouse on April 18th. 

Dugan had a major wobble when the law and order posse arrived. Her view was that the judicial courts should not cooperate with the executive (immigration) courts as they are a bit too Trumpian for her liking. After all, immigration courts just deal with low class things such as deportations, while circuit courts deal with highfalutin cases such as… well, fights over blasting some funky beats. She sent the posse off to talk with the chief judge, who told them that they could arrest Flores-Ruiz in the public hallways but not the courtroom. Meanwhile Dugan was sneaking Flores-Ruiz out the courtroom back door and telling him to leg it. Alas, the Feds were one step ahead of Judge Brainiac by covering the court back exit.

On April 24th the FBI was back at the courthouse, only this time with a warrant for Dugan’s arrest on the charge of obstruction of justice, which carries a maximum six year sentence and $350,000 fine. They duly handcuffed her and ‘perp walked’ her out of the courthouse. Just before Dugan’s arrest, State Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield), summed it all up in a news release: “In all my years of Milwaukee politics and public safety issues, working with cops, district attorneys and judges, I have never seen a more irresponsible act by an officer of the court, let alone a judge, if true.” This view was dramatically supported by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which suspended Dugan from all court duties a couple of days after her arrest.

And then everyone else got involved, but not in order to support the law as with the Wisconsin Supremes. Judge Monica Isham from another Wisconsin county chimed in on X and emails by declaring “she had no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp” (Flores-Ruiz was arrested doing a runner in the open air) and that she would refuse to do her court duties (she was in her courtroom with a full docket on April 28th). And then, as surely as rain in April, came the Democrat politicians. The favourite was Maxine Dexter. She is one of the Congress Reps who last week was all over social media claiming she was not going to leave El Salvador without every Democrat’s favourite MS-13 gangbanger, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. But at the weekend she was in CNN’s studio in NYC, strangely enough not in El Salvador, now lying about there being no “clarity” in the charges. And then came the usual ragtag bunch of anti-everything-Trump-does protesters outside the nearest FBI office to Judge Dugan’s courtroom.

Meanwhile, the legacy media was all over the Dugan story. The media was not really interested in Cano, apart from a flurry of coverage from more Right-wing outfits such as Fox News. Judges in cahoots with violent gangbangers? Who cares? It was no use to media that are still performing the role of propaganda amplifiers for the Democrat Party, which they had done throughout the previous four years. But they did care about Judge Dugan, however, as her story lent itself more to bashing the Trump administration by pretending the story was about the Trump administration arresting judges in a manner last seen in Nazi Germany, as opposed to the fact that the Department of Justice (DOJ) agents were carrying out the law of the land pretty much to the letter. Some reporting did mention what she did was illegal, but no matter it was heroic as it was done in the service of the sacred illegals.

As Dugan’s case was so flagrant an offence for a judge it will be memory-holed quickly like Cano’s by Democrat politicians and their media handmaidens, while protesters will move on to another protest du jour. However, this is considered job well done as the intent is only to leave an impression in as many folks minds as they can. Trump administration arresting judges will be referred to again and again in the future with the hope that folks will not care as to the actual facts. This has worked extremely well with much of the reporting on Trump. ‘Russian collusion’ still comes up when talking about Trump nearly seven years after it was discredited by the Mueller Report. The strategy is not confined to immigration. A study by the Media Research Centre showed that the three evening newscasts (ABC, CBS, NBC) had a score of 92% negative coverage of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Many stories were complete nonsense, but the overall picture painted by these guys has an effect on the electorate.

The good news is that actions by lower court judges can only be individual acts of legal hanky-panky. The real devilry lies with the district court judges who can enact wide-sweeping injunctions slowing the deportation process. Just this week District Court Judge Thurston released an order telling Border Patrol personnel that they could not arrest suspected illegal aliens without a warrant. The Border Patrol is specifically authorised to do that under Federal statute 8 U.S.C. 1357. The judge knows that this will be thrown out further up the chain but for now it stops the Border Patrol doing its job. Swingeing injunctions can be eliminated either by Congress or the Supreme Court. Neither has done so as yet. Until then the judiciary is essentially waging a war against the executive carrying out a major one of the policies for which the President was elected. A war in which Judges Dugan and Cano are doing their small part.