If Court Orders Don’t Matter, Nothing Does
The government itself must respect the law
This op-ed was originally published in the Minnesota Star Tribune on Jan. 31, 2026.
Ninety-six federal court orders. One month. One state.
That’s what Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the US District Court in Minnesota –– a Republican appointee –– placed on the public record: an appendix identifying 96 court orders violated by ICE across 74 cases since January 1, with a warning that the tally is likely understating the magnitude of the problem.
In an order excoriating the Trump administration for failing to comply with the court’s requirement to hold either a bond hearing for a petitioner or release them, Judge Schiltz wrote that the list of 96 ignored orders “should give pause to anyone –– no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law.” He added that “ICE has likely violated more court orders than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
A country can argue immigration policy all day long, but a country cannot remain a constitutional republic when an executive agency treats court orders as optional. That is the civic emergency being laid bare in Minnesota, and it is a warning the rest of the country must heed.
Americans are being offered a false choice: safety or rights, as if constitutional limits belong in calm waters while stormy weather earns the government a free pass. As though “law and order” means obedience from citizens and exceptions for the government.
Real law and order binds everyone. Including those in power.
Court orders are one of the ways democracies prove that power has limits. Judges cannot enforce their own rulings, agencies do. When an agency treats an order as optional, it is breaking the mechanism that keeps authority legitimate.
Ignoring court orders damages far more than the people whose names sit on the dockets. The damage spreads into every future demand the government makes of its citizens, hollowing out the very authority law enforcement depends on: the public’s willingness to comply, because the system has agreed-upon limits.
A government that asks the public to respect the law must model respect for the law.
This is not a partisan complaint. These structures have held the world’s oldest democracy –– however imperfectly –– in place through administrations from right to left.
The rule of law is not contrived via a shared mood. It is held together by the daily decision to treat certain words as binding: Released. Enjoined. Produce. Appear. When those words stop meaning what they say, they teach citizens a terrible lesson: the rules are not real, and whoever can produce the largest show of force will carry the day.
If law and order is to be regained, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE should issue a compliance protocol that functions as an operational checklist. “Protocol” has to mean more than a memo; it must include a chain of responsibility for every court order: who receives it, who confirms it, who executes it, and what supervisor certifies completion in writing.
The public deserves weekly reporting: orders received, time to compliance, and explanations attached to any delays. Judge Schiltz has already given the nation a ledger of judicial orders. It’s time for DHS to respond with a ledger of executive compliance. If the agency is doing its job, transparency will strengthen it. If it is not, transparency will force a correction.
Second, the DOJ should conduct an independent review of the January violations documented by the court and publish a public summary with findings and corrective actions. Independence matters because credibility matters. It also serves to protect the many public servants who do follow the rules and do not want their work — or their safety — undermined by a culture of impunity. A review that produces a public account builds confidence that the government itself remains governable.
Third, Congress should use its oversight authority to ensure court order compliance. Lawmakers can debate immigration policies, staffing levels, and budgets. But none of those debates can substitute for the baseline requirement that the executive branch obey the judiciary. Agencies can litigate and appeal, but agencies must follow orders while litigation proceeds. That is quite literally the rule of law in action.
Federal agencies cannot break the law to enforce the law. Legitimacy comes from restraint, consistency, and fidelity to the institutions that hold power to account.
When “law and order” becomes a slogan detached from law, order decays. The vacuum gets filled with cynicism, vigilantism, conspiracy, and violence. People stop cooperating. Communities harden. The public square becomes more dangerous, not less.
When courts lose their power to command compliance, democracy loses one of its quiet miracles: the ability to restrain power using words on a page. Law and order stands or falls on obeying the courts.
Minnesota has put that truth in stark relief. The rest of the country should pay attention –– because once court orders become optional, nothing else is secure.
Yesterday I was walking my dog on a long hike, catching up on scary news podcasts (the only setting where I can balance the doom with some tangible heaven), and I heard the New York Times interview with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. It was a great interview with all the right answers you’d expect from a thoughtful leader. But the most striking moment was when the interviewer asked what all the legal victories mean if the agency doesn’t seem affected by court orders it disagrees with. Frey was stunned, got emotional, and basically said he couldn’t answer that question because it’s too scary to answer. And he’s right. That question is too scary to answer.
Thank you for answering it anyway, Sharon. And for reminding me of the scariest constitutional crisis of them all: the mechanism of the courts requires some faith in the document that our current government doesn’t have. It’s as though everyone is on the verge of realizing the paper we use for cash doesn’t hold any inherent value without the trust we place in the system. We are engineers performing a stress test on a new bridge, except THIS IS NOT A TEST.
I’m currently drafting an article on several other places where ICE has exposed gaps in constitutional coverage. Places where many of us assumed we were already protected.
We thought racial profiling was illegal, even if common in practice, but SCOTUS ruled that white people shouldn’t have to suffer the inconvenience of “guilty until proven innocent” during ICE raids. We thought the government could be held accountable for rendering people to countries they’d never set foot in to be tortured. We thought the government would at least be embarrassed when caught using AI to manipulate images demonizing protesters, not defend their own fake news as “memes” that will “continue,” while framing anyone who questions the policy as protecting domestic terrorists. We thought that if the government used lethal force against protesters, they’d at least be constrained by what video evidence actually shows, not free to invent whatever story they wished was true to assassinate the character of the deceased. Each of these felt like bedrock protections. None of them have much constitutional basis, it seems.
Thank you for explaining not just how the system is cracking, but what glue we, as engineers of our own laws, can use to stop the bridge from collapsing. I love your three recommendations: the compliance protocol with chains of responsibility, the independent DOJ review, and congressional oversight of court order compliance. I think these could work better as constitutional rules with teeth rather than assuming the executive branch will suddenly hold itself accountable, repeating the error that got us into this mess. What if we enshrined mandatory public reporting on court order compliance, created an independent enforcement body outside executive control, and made agency funding contingent on certified compliance with judicial orders? What if we stopped depending on shame or good faith?
We need to protect ourselves from what this already means. And I think the midterms are our best shot at using our votes as leverage to elect candidates who pledge to amend the Constitution once in office. We haven’t meaningfully amended the Constitution in half a century, even though we used to do so more than once a decade on average. (I’m ignoring the 27th Amendment, since it was proposed two hundred years before it was ratified and didn’t change much of significance.) Amending the Constitution is difficult, and it should be. Any serious effort will require broad bipartisan consensus. But the beauty of reforms like banning gerrymandering, overturning Citizens United through campaign finance reform, and ratifying the ERA is that they already poll as widely popular across political backgrounds. It’s party leadership standing in the way, not the people. If we can organize voters outside of the party system, maybe we can save this country. And now, thanks to Sharon, I have a few more ideas for how the Constitution can order the president to do his or her job in following the oath of office: defend the rule of law and protect us.
But the DOJ and congress will not stand up to the
president and not force these agencies to follow the judges orders. Otherwise they would have already done so. Not enough people to force it. So what to do then? What now? The protests aren’t making it happen. What to do now?!?!?