Justice Department Moves to Disqualify Two Minnesota Federal Judges From Immigration Cases Over Their Public Remarks

The Justice Department is asking two federal judges in Minnesota to step aside from immigration-related cases, arguing that interviews they gave to The New York Times about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown have raised doubts about whether they can rule impartially, according to Fox News and MPR News.

In separate motions, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. asked U.S. District Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim to recuse themselves. Both judges were among seven Minnesota federal judges quoted in a Sept. 17 Times story about Operation Metro Surge, the administration's immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis area, and its effect on the federal courts, MPR News reported.

Why the Justice Department Wants the Minnesota Judges Off the Cases

Schiltz is presiding over the Justice Department's effort to revoke the U.S. citizenship of Salah Osman Ahmed, a Somali-born man who pleaded guilty in 2009 to a terrorism-related charge, both outlets reported. Tunheim is presiding over the prosecution of a South African national and legal permanent resident accused of voting illegally in the 2024 election.

“A judge who has publicly taken sides on the political issue of immigration enforcement cannot then preside over a case concerning one of the Justice Department’s key immigration initiatives: pursuing the largest denaturalization effort in Department history to restore trust and integrity in U.S. citizenship,” Woodward wrote, according to Fox News.

“Impartiality is imperative to ensuring public trust in our Nation’s judiciary,” the Justice Department said in a statement posted to X, Fox News reported. “Judge Schiltz’s and Judge Tunheim’s on-the-record participation in a recent highly partisan New York Times Article, along with Judge Schiltz’s subsequent public comments, unquestionably calls into doubt whether they can be impartial in these cases.”

The motions follow a judicial misconduct complaint the Justice Department filed last month against Schiltz, Tunheim and five other Minnesota judges who spoke to the Times, accusing them of violating judicial ethics rules, according to Fox News and MPR News. The department's recusal motion also cites remarks Schiltz made at a University of St. Thomas School of Law symposium on the operation, MPR News reported.

What the Judges Have Said

Schiltz, who was Minnesota's chief federal judge during the operation, told the Times that the administration's handling of it had created a “grave threat to the rule of law,” Fox News reported. Tunheim told the newspaper that immigration agents were not “arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street,” MPR News reported.

Schiltz declined to comment on the new motions when reached by Fox News this week. In September, he told Fox News that no one had identified any basis for his recusal. “Neither in the New York Times article nor anywhere else have I commented on the merits of a particular case,” he said then. “Instead, I have spoken in defense of the rule of law, a component of which is compliance with court orders. That is not a cause for recusal.”

In a Sept. 30 statement to MPR News, Schiltz said he had acted “well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times.”

Schiltz and Tunheim will decide the motions themselves, St. Thomas law professor Greg Sisk told MPR News. If they decline to step aside, the Justice Department could ask other district judges to rule, he said, though the law makes it difficult to get an appeals court to force judges off a case.

Daniel Gerdts, the attorney representing Ahmed in the denaturalization case, told MPR News the department's arguments for recusal were “contrived and baseless.”

Image: The federal courthouse in Minneapolis (file photo), by Tony Webster, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Yossi Schmidt, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Digital Free Press

Hold Everyone Accountable.

Sources: Fox News, "DOJ moves to boot two federal judges from immigration cases over remarks to media: 'Extraordinarily imprudent'" (Oct. 22, 2026): https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-moves-boot-two-federal-judges-immigration-cases-over-remarks-media-extraordinarily-imprudent ; MPR News, "Feds seek to boot Minnesota judges from immigration cases after public comments" (Oct. 21, 2026): https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/10/21/minnesota-judges-could-be-removed-from-immigration-cases-after-public-comments