DOJ Says Its Lawyers Can’t Guarantee Agency Follows Court Orders

A government lawyer shouldn’t have been penalized for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement violating court orders because he doesn’t “control” the agency, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court.

“Government lawyers do not, by representing an agency in a district court, personally guarantee the agency’s compliance with court orders,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a Monday response brief at the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. “A federal court abuses its authority when it uses its contempt power as a wedge to set an attorney against his own client.”

The government made that argument in its effort to appeal a Minnesota federal judge’s contempt order against special assistant US attorney Matthew Isihara, over the government’s failure to return identification documents to an immigrant after he was released from detention.

The order from Judge Laura M. Provinzino of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota instructed Isihara to personally pay $500 a day until those documents were returned. ICE returned the documents to Rigoberto Soto Jimenez the following day, and the judge purged the contempt order, sparing Isihara from paying any fines.

However, Justice Department attorneys argued the court still has authority to hear his appeal of the contempt order because it was ICE, not Isihara, who decided to comply with it. They also claimed the order, though purged, will hurt Isihara professionally as he may be required to disclose it when applying for a state bar or maintaining his security clearance.

“Mr. Isihara, however, lacked that choice because—to state the obvious—a SAUSA in the District of Minnesota does not control ICE,” DOJ said. “Because Mr. Isihara himself had no ability to comply or prevent compliance, he should not be required to suffer permanent professional consequences from the district court’s contempt order absent this Court’s review.”

The Justice Department’s brief responds to a request by Soto Jimenez’s attorneys for the Eighth Circuit to dismiss Isihara’s appeal, arguing he didn’t face any concrete injury since he was no longer in contempt and didn’t pay any fines. His attorneys also asked the appeals court to appoint a third-party to defend the lower court’s contempt order, as Soto Jimenez has no interest in doing so now that he has his identity documents back.

The contempt order against Isihara came amid heightened immigration enforcement operations in the Minnesota.

The state’s top prosecutor has said the resulting surge in habeas filings from immigrants challenging their detention has burdened his office. The US attorney’s office has turned to detailed military lawyers to help fill staffing gaps left open following prosecutor resignations over the decision not to investigate the killing of Renee Good by a federal officer.

Isihara was most recently a judge advocate for the US Army, before he began a detail in January from the Defense Department to the Justice Department as a special assistant US attorney, according to his LinkedIn page.

Soto Jimenez’s case is one of dozens of examples where the judges have found the government failed to comply with court orders requiring it to release detained immigrants with their identification documents.

Minnesota’s Chief US District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, criticized ICE and threatened to hold the agency in contempt for violating orders more than 100 times in cases brought by immigrants in his court.

During a show cause hearing earlier this year, Isihara apologized to Provinzino for missing a filing deadline and said the case “slipped through the cracks,” according to a transcript of the hearing, after Soto Jimenez was released in Texas instead of Minnesota and without his identity documents.

Isihara also told the judge that “the ball was dropped” and that he takes “responsibility” for not promptly forwarding the court’s order to ICE’s legal office.

“Our goal here is ultimately to ensure that the Court’s orders are followed and complied with,” Isihara said, according to the transcript. “I’m sure I was tracking it, but there are probably multiple priorities that I was trying to deal with that day and it got lost in the shuffle.” ’

The case is Soto Jimenez v. Isihara, 8th Cir., No. 26-01327, brief filed 3/23/26.