A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorney was removed from her post with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Feb. 4, after declaring to a Minnesota judge during a hearing on immigration enforcement that the “system sucks” and that her “job sucks.” She also stated that she wished the judge would hold her in contempt so she “can have a full 24 hours of sleep.”
Julie Le, a publicly listed DHS attorney, was detailed in January to the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota. On Feb. 3, Le was summoned to testify in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn., regarding the government’s noncompliance with judicial orders involving people held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
"What do you want me to do? The system sucks," Le expressed to Judge Jerry Blackwell, according to a court transcript. "This job sucks. And I am trying [with] every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need."
A review of federal court records shows that Le handled 91 immigration cases in January, with 88 from Minnesota and three from Texas, mostly habeas petitions by immigrants detained by federal authorities.
According to the transcript, Judge Blackwell stated, "The overwhelming majority of the hundreds [of individuals] seen by this court have been found to be lawfully present as of now in the country. In some instances, it is the continued detention of a person the Constitution does not permit the government to hold and who should have been left alone, that is, not arrested in the first place.”
Earlier that week, Judge Blackwell issued an order that stated that the government's "failures" were "alarming" because the government's "persistent noncompliance with orders in this District was extensively detailed just last week," referring to a ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz.
