NOTE-014: Segundo A.P.G. v. Bondi show cause hearing

Contribution

This is the official court reporter’s certified transcript (Erin D. Drost, RMR-CRR) of a consolidated show-cause hearing before U.S. District Judge Jerry W. Blackwell (D. Minn., St. Paul) in five § 2241 habeas matters arising from Operation Metro Surge. It records the court’s statement of principle on compliance, the government attorneys’ first-hand account of how release orders were (and were not) carried out, and petitioners’ counsel’s request for sanctions. It adds a primary record of process failure in the executive’s execution of release orders at a specific place and time. It decides nothing.

Key insight

The court framed the hearing as “compliance with court orders; not policy” (p. 5). Its central proposition was that an enforcement operation large enough to overwhelm the government’s capacity to comply lawfully creates an obligation, not an excuse: “Volume … is not a justification for diluting constitutional rights and it never can be. It heightens the need for care” (p. 8). The government’s own witnesses did not contest the principle. Ms. Voss agreed that it was not the government’s position that the operation had outpaced its ability to comply, or that resource limits justified relaxing constitutional requirements (p. 10). The account they gave of the mechanics, however, including missing credentials, no training, orders routed to inaccessible email and ICE adding conditions, describes exactly that gap. It also shows no one able to say who is accountable for executing a release (pp. 36–40).

Assumptions

Premises and authorities invoked by the speakers:

• Article III authority (the court, p. 6): orders are “not advisory and … not conditional”, and their authority derives from Article III, not from the parties’ agreement.
• Unitary executive for accountability (the court, p. 22): DOJ, DHS and ICE are one executive branch, so “it is not an excuse to tell me you contacted ICE”.
• Remedial, not punitive, specificity (the court, pp. 9, 33–34): the detailed release requirements (48-hour confirmation of date, time and location; return to Minnesota; no release into dangerous cold; no unordered conditions) were added in response to earlier failures.
• Posture of the underlying cases: in each matter the court had already found detention unlawful and ordered release (pp. 14, 20, 28, 32). The court stated that the “overwhelming majority of the hundreds seen by this Court” were found lawfully present (p. 6). That is the court’s characterization, not a finding in these five cases.
• Nature of the document: statements by counsel are representations and argument, and statements by the bench are remarks from the bench. Neither is a finding of fact or a ruling.

Key results

What the record establishes (as statements made on the record):

• Segundo A.P.G. (26-cv-603), pp. 11–18. Release was ordered on January 27 with a 48-hour status update due, and none was filed. A January 30 text order required a show-cause letter by 5 p.m. on January 31, and none was filed. Petitioner’s counsel reported on February 1 that he was still detained in Minnesota. The court issued an order to show cause on February 2. The court learned only “from a representation that was made in a different case” that he had been released on February 2 at 10:00 p.m. (p. 15). Ms. Le said she had started on detail on January 5, received her DOJ PIV card only “yesterday”, could not reliably access her DOJ email, and had received “no proper orientation or training” (pp. 12–17). She said four SAUSAs were handling the operation (p. 18).
• Oscar O.T. (26-cv-167), pp. 18–28. He was apprehended on January 10 and ordered released on January 15. The court’s timeline is a return flight promised for January 20, the detainee then located in Albuquerque, a contempt motion by petitioner’s counsel, further orders on January 21, 22, 26, 27 and 28, and release on January 28 at 4:30 p.m. (13 days). Asked about the “safety concern”, Ms. Le cited airline boarding denial and fear of protesters at the airport. She agreed that detainees are flown out of Minnesota “within hours, if not the next day”, and when asked about taking 13 days to return someone found unlawfully detained she said, “I did ask the same question too. I have not got the answer” (p. 28).
• Jose L.C.C. (26-cv-244), pp. 28–35. He was ordered released on January 15 and released on January 18, with no 48-hour update. The government then imposed release conditions that the court had not ordered and that had to be struck. Ms. Le confirmed this (“That is accurate”, p. 29). She described “pulling teeth”, having offered her resignation, and “sometime I wish you would just hold me in contempt … so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep” (p. 30), and “The system sucks. This job sucks” (p. 31). She said the conditions had been corrected after “a big, huge fight” (p. 32).
• Roman N. and Juan V.A.C. The violations found by the court were not contested (p. 35).
• Accountability (Ms. Voss), pp. 36–40. Responsibility lies with “the entirety” of the executive branch. Release orders go to agency counsel and “the operational” people at the St. Paul field office (Fort Snelling). Added conditions reflect, in her belief, “a lack of training and communication from the supervisors down”, not a policy (p. 39). She did not know whether DOJ or DHS anticipated the habeas volume or added any personnel or protocols (pp. 39–40). She said she had never in her career seen comparable noncompliance (p. 40).
• Petitioners (Ms. Kelley), pp. 40–46. She said the operation had outpaced constitutional capacity and that the strategy is “Detain first, find authority later” (p. 42). She pointed to declarations filed in Advocates for Human Rights v. DHS, No. 26-cv-749 (ECF 67, Oscar’s declaration; ECF 29, her own). She described clients left roadside in sub-zero weather and asked for sanctions against “the party” under the court’s inherent authority (pp. 45–46).
• Disposition. “Court will take this all under advisement” (p. 46). The court adjourned at 2:16 p.m.

Follow-on record (checked 2026-09-25). In the RECAP-indexed entries I could see (index timestamps to 2026-02-13), 26-cv-603 shows transcript requests (ECF 23–24) and a respondents’ letter to the district judge (ECF 25, February 4, content not available). 26-cv-167 shows a sealed order (ECF 28, January 28). No written order on contempt or sanctions after the hearing was found in any indexed entry or in the press and commentary searched. Whether one exists is unverified. The full dockets could not be listed. Press reports (CNN, February 4, 2026; Law Dork) say Ms. Le’s detail to the U.S. Attorney’s Office ended the day after the hearing. That is reported, not confirmed from court records. Law Dork credits the Minneapolis lawyer Daniel Suitor with first posting the transcript, a possible provenance for the Drive copy (unverified).

Claims

id	claim	strength	support
C1	In Oscar O.T., release came 13 days after the release order	moderate	the court’s timeline read from its own docket orders (pp. 20–24); Ms. Le confirmed “the dates and the time” (p. 24)
C2	In Jose L.C.C., the government imposed release conditions the court had not ordered	moderate	the court’s account, confirmed by government counsel on the record (p. 29)
C3	In Segundo A.P.G., no 48-hour update or show-cause letter was filed, and release was learned of through another case	moderate	the court’s timeline (pp. 14–15), not contested by counsel
C4	Government counsel lacked credentials, training and email access, and each SAUSA was devising process	weak–moderate	first-hand testimony of one attorney (pp. 12–18, 36), unsworn colloquy; exhibits returned unredacted and not filed
C5	Added conditions stem from operational training failures, not policy	weak	Ms. Voss’s belief (“I don’t believe there is a policy”, p. 39)
C6	The “safety concern” justified the Oscar O.T. delay	weak	two partly inconsistent explanations (airline denial; protester risk); the court received no written answer and sealed the issue (pp. 24–27)
C7	About 90–96 release-order violations occurred in January	weak as stated here	referred to, not established, in this record (pp. 38–39, 46); source list not identified in the transcript
C8	The operation is “detain first, find authority later” and involves stops without probable cause	assertion / advocacy	petitioners’ counsel, citing client reports and declarations in another case (pp. 41–43)
C9	Volume cannot justify diluting constitutional rights, and noncompliance is partly “of your own making”	n/a (statement of principle)	remarks from the bench (pp. 8, 34); not a ruling

Concepts

• Show-cause hearing — a proceeding in which a party must explain why it should not be sanctioned or held in contempt. Here it was noticed after written show-cause orders went unanswered.
• 48-hour update — the court’s standing requirement to confirm the date, time and location of a release within 48 hours of the order.
• Unconditional release — release ordered on a finding of unlawful detention, with no conditions (such as an ankle monitor) unless the court imposes them.
• SAUSA — Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, here an ICE attorney detailed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to handle habeas petitions.
• Operation Metro Surge — the DHS enforcement operation in Minnesota whose arrests generated these petitions (named by the court, p. 7).

Connections

Within this record, the transcript sits beside the other federal-court documents that record executive-branch conduct under judicial review: the Rhode Island Hospital subpoena ruling (LIT-024) and, more distantly, the United States v. Google remedies opinion (LIT-006). Unlike those, it contains no opinion. Its natural companions outside the record are Chief Judge Schiltz’s January 28, 2026 order and its 96-violation appendix (reported by Just Security, not read here), the Advocates for Human Rights v. DHS declarations it cites, and any written order issued afterward in these five dockets. Gelman’s post on “reckless disregard for the truth” (LIT-014) touches the same enforcement context, DHS public statements, from another angle. The two documents make no reference to each other.

Bearing on the record

No THEORY document is affected, and there is no ML-practice content. It is filed as a primary legal record. If a THEORY or reading ever cites this transcript for a holding, that would be an error: the transcript holds nothing.

Limitations

• It is a transcript of colloquy. Counsel’s statements are unsworn, and the court’s remarks are not findings.
• Exhibits handed up at the hearing were returned unredacted and are not in the record (pp. 18–19, 36).
• The government’s written submissions and the sealed safety-concern material were not read.
• Two of the five cases are not discussed on the merits of the noncompliance.
• The outcome is unknown from this document. The follow-on docket search was incomplete because of access limits, so the existence or absence of a later order is unverified.
• The Drive copy was checked for internal consistency (caption, certificate, 46 pages) and against docket metadata, not against the PACER image.

Open questions

• Did Judge Blackwell issue a written order on contempt or sanctions after taking the matter under advisement? A full PACER or CourtListener listing of the five dockets after 2026-02-03 would settle it.
• What were the “safety concerns” filed under seal in 26-cv-167, and does ECF 28 address them?
• Did the respondents’ February 4 letter (26-cv-603 ECF 25) report the named accountable official or unit, or new protocols, that the court asked about?

Corrections to the seeded skim

• The skim’s unidentified “further matter (pp. 20–26)” is Oscar O.T. (26-cv-167), which runs pp. 18–28. On the court’s account, Oscar O.T. was apprehended on January 10, ordered released on January 15, routed through El Paso and then Albuquerque, and released on January 28 at 4:30 p.m., 13 days after the order. The “safety concern” given for the delay has two strands in Ms. Le’s answers. One is that the airline denied boarding to him and his escort agent, for reasons she said she did not know (pp. 24, 27). The other is advice that publishing flight details could draw protesters to the airport (pp. 26–27). The court said it had put the safety issue under seal and had received no written answer (p. 24).
• The admission of “no orientation or training” (p. 17) came during the Segundo A.P.G. colloquy, not Jose L.C.C. The Jose L.C.C. colloquy is at pp. 28–35, not pp. 29–32.
• On “about 90–96 order violations in January”: the court spoke of “a list of some 90 or so cases of violations of court orders for release”, plus “the ten or so that I had just last week” (pp. 38–39). Petitioners’ counsel Kelley said “you’ve referenced the 96 court order violations and counting just in part of January” (p. 46). The transcript does not say whose list this is. Just Security reports that Chief Judge Schiltz’s January 28, 2026 order attached an appendix of 96 violated orders in 74 cases, so the 96 figure may be that district-wide list and not a count of this court’s cases (inference, unverified).
• “Petitioners’ counsel (pp. 41–46) … ask for sanctions”: only Kira Kelley (for Oscar O.T. and Juan V.A.C.) spoke. Irina Vaynerman declined (p. 46). No counsel appeared for the Segundo A.P.G., Jose L.C.C. or Roman N. petitioners (p. 3).
• Roman N. (26-cv-282) and Juan V.A.C. (26-cv-645) were not discussed individually. The court offered to skip them unless the government contested “the violations that the Court found”, and Ms. Le did not contest them (p. 35).
• Docket identity is now cross-checked for four of the five cases. RECAP lists 26-cv-603 as “Pualasin Guaman v. Bondi” (filed 1/23, terminated 1/27/2026), 26-cv-167 as “Tot-Choc v. Bondi”, 26-cv-282 as “Nazarov v. Trump” and 26-cv-645 as “Avila Campos v. Bondi”. The judge, parties and counsel (Voss, Le) match. 26-cv-167 ECF 29 (1/28) attributes a delay in respondents’ receipt of an order to “an error in the Clerk’s Office”, which matches the court’s remark at p. 23. 26-cv-282 ECF 14 (2/2) set the show-cause hearing for 2/3 at 1:00 p.m. in Courtroom 7A.
• The header date “published: 2026-02-01” is a month placeholder. The hearing took place on February 3, 2026.