Things are so chaotic under the dystopian circus tent that is the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation that even lawyers hired to enforce his policies apparently can’t figure out how to make the clown music stop.
This week, the chaos spilled out of the car in Minnesota when Julie Le, a onetime ICE attorney who had volunteered with the Justice Department to handle cases for Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, went viral for telling a federal judge, in an official court hearing, that “this job sucks” and admitting that she welcomed the idea of being held in contempt just so she could get a “full 24 hours sleep.”
Le, who was listed in nearly 90 cases, has reportedly been removed from her role since her outburst. But a court transcript from the meltdown at the hearing reveals someone who appeared to have been at her wits’ end.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell was intended to focus on cases where the Department of Justice had not complied with court orders — specifically, orders around unlawfully detained people, including those who had been detained weeks beyond their court-ordered release dates or held under conditions when the judge specifically said no conditions were to be set.
