So with all the habeas cases now pending in Minnesota and government lawyers quitting over them, ICE has apparently brought in Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers from the Department of Defense (since they can’t quit).
It is not going well.
A JAG attorney named Matthew Isihara is handling a case in front of Judge Laura Provinzino and has been found in civil contempt for not obeying a court order.
The judge ordered an immigrant detained in El Paso to be returned to Minnesota with his identification papers. Instead ICE released him in Texas without ANY papers, forcing his attorney to find him shelter and a return flight.
(I’m still puzzled how it was possible to arrange a return flight without papers, but the story doesn’t tell. I suspect the immigrant is actually still stuck in Texas, but that is speculation on my behalf).
The judge obviously wasn’t amused, and the JAG attorney who was forced to handle the case is now facing a $500 daily fine for every day that goes by without the immigrant having received his identification papers back.
I guess this is an indirect result of the fact that Defense Secretary Pete “Kegsbreath” has expressed open contempt for JAGs, labeling them "jagoffs" and accusing them of obstructing “warfighters”. He has initiated a purge of top military legal officers, replacing them with hand-picked candidates, and shifted hundreds of JAGs to non-legal duties. Now we know where some of them went…
Sucks to be a JAG placed in that situation. It will be interesting to see if the poor JAG in this case can compel ICE to actually comply.
Update: Kyle Cheney kindly posted the Judge’s contempt order
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JUST IN: Judge Provinzino in Minnesota has held a Justice Department attorney in civil contempt for violations of her order requiring the return of a released ICE detainee’s ID documents. He must pay $500 a day until the documents are returned.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T23:41:18.396Z
