The U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on October 21 to throw out a contempt finding against a government attorney in a Minnesota immigration case, arguing that a federal lawyer cannot be punished for what his client — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — failed to do, according to Courthouse News and Law&Crime reports of the hearing.

The three-judge panel — Judges Bobby Shepherd, James Loken and Steven Colloton — spent much of the hearing on a more basic question: whether anything is left to decide, since the contempt was purged before a single dollar of the $500-a-day fine came due, the reports said.

A release order, a Texas release and a $500-a-day fine

The case began with Rigoberto S. J., a Mexican citizen who had lived in Minnesota since 2018 with his lawful permanent resident wife and was arrested on January 14, 2026, according to the district court's order. His habeas petition argued that the mandatory-detention provision, 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2), did not apply to him. The government missed its February 5 deadline to respond, and on February 9 U.S. District Judge Laura M. Provinzino granted the petition.

The order required release in Minnesota by 5 p.m. on February 13, without conditions, and that the government return all of his property. ICE instead released him in Texas, from the Camp East Montana facility in El Paso, without his Minnesota driver's licence or Mexican consular ID, FOX 9 reported. On February 17 the judge ordered the government to show cause why it should not be held in contempt, and the next day she found Matthew Isihara — a military lawyer serving as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney and the government's counsel of record — in civil contempt and set a fine of $500 for each day ICE did not comply.

Isihara told the court the order had "fallen through the cracks" and that he had handled nearly 130 cases in the previous month, FOX 9 reported. ICE returned the property the next day, so no fine was paid and the contempt was lifted. Daniel Rosen, the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, called the ruling "a lawless abuse of judicial power," according to FOX 9.

Why the department kept appealing a sanction that cost nothing

The Justice Department wants a ruling barring courts from using government lawyers as financial leverage over the agencies they represent, Courthouse News reported. The Eighth Circuit declined in April to dismiss the appeal, Bloomberg Law reported. Justice Department attorney Daniel Tenny told the panel that "there has to be a clear order of the court saying there's something that Mr. Isihara had to do at the time the contempt order was issued." Jeffrey Justman, a court-appointed lawyer defending the order, answered that Isihara "personally dropped the ball and never forwarded the order."

Judge Shepherd asked what the panel could do "to redress any injury that had been inflicted here," and observed that the show-cause order gave notice of possible contempt against the government, not against an individual attorney — either point would let the court rule narrowly rather than announce the broader rule the department wants.

The legal ground under the Minnesota releases has already moved. In March, a divided Eighth Circuit panel held that people in the country without authorization can be treated as "seeking admission" and held without bond, rejecting the reading Judge Provinzino relied on, Courthouse News reported, and the Supreme Court agreed on October 1 to decide the mandatory-detention question nationally, JURIST reported. No decision date in the contempt appeal has been set.