Left: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks about government efforts to locate and safeguard unaccompanied children during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, United States, on June 11, 2026 (Photo by Lenin Nolly/NurPhoto via AP). Right: Judge Laura Provinzino appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 10, 2024, following her nomination (Senate Judiciary Committee).
The DOJ maintains that a federal judge's contempt order "inappropriately" punished an attorney to force ICE's compliance with court orders, even though the lawyer conceded he "personally dropped the ball."
The matter before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involves special assistant U.S. attorney (SAUSA) Matthew Isihara, a lawyer with the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the Army (JAG) who was detailed to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota amid DHS' Operation Metro Surge.
In February, U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino ordered the release of Rigoberto Soto Jimenez, a Mexican man living in Minnesota who was "unlawfully detained." She also ordered the government to return his identification documents. But when Jimenez was let out of an El Paso, Texas, facility, he didn't have his Minnesota driver's license or Mexican Consulate ID, and he wasn't returned to Minnesota.
As a result, the Joe Biden-appointed jurist — aware of hundreds of violations of court orders — decided to slap Isihara with a $500 daily "coercive fine" in the habeas corpus case until ICE returned Jimenez's property as ordered.
In the end, Isihara didn't have to pay a dime, because ICE managed to confirm its compliance just one day later. Though Provinzino's action proved effective, the DOJ asserted it was a "manifestly improper" power move that "wrongly stained" Isihara's reputation.
"Errors sometimes occur, and the government endeavors promptly to correct them when they happen. But in no event can a district court properly impose personal-capacity contempt fines on a government attorney out of frustration with his client agency's conduct," DOJ's brief in reply said Tuesday. "That is what happened here."
In early June, attorney Jeffrey Justman — a court-appointed amicus curiae, or friend of the court, in support of the contempt order — stated the DOJ should lose its appeal across the board.
The purging of Isihara's contempt makes the issue moot, shows the attorney lacks standing, and "makes this appeal nonjusticiable," Justman argued.
Beyond that, the record shows that Isihara made a key concession on personal responsibility, rendering those arguments forfeit, the filing said.
"Your Honor, bluntly, in this case, no, and I—I concede that I personally dropped the ball in this case," Isihara was quoted telling Provinzino.
The DOJ claimed in response that it wasn't clear to Isihara in that moment, under questioning by the judge, that he himself could be facing contempt.
"Amicus's suggestion that Mr. Isihara forfeited the arguments advanced in this appeal is meritless. As we have explained, the district court provided no advance notice that Mr. Isihara might be held in contempt personally—a defect that provides an independent basis for vacating the court's order, not a reason to affirm it on the ground that Mr. Isihara's uncounseled, on-the-spot oral reaction to the court's inquiries did not flesh out the legal arguments advanced in his brief on appeal," the DOJ said.
The court-appointed amicus answered that judges have "broad discretion" to issue a "coercive contempt sanction" like this one.
"[N]early everything he says on appeal was never presented to the district court," the brief said of Isihara.