The illegal immigrant at the center of the obstruction case involving Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan has been removed from the country, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested in April after federal agents tried to detain him at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
Flores-Ruiz, 33, has a laundry list of violent criminal charges, including strangulation and suffocation, battery and domestic abuse. Ruiz has illegally entered the United States on two occasions.
While Flores-Ruiz is now out of the country, his case led to federal charges against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan that could land her in prison.
“Judge Hannah Dugan’s actions to obstruct this violent criminal’s arrest take ‘activist judge’ to a whole new meaning,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Thanks to the brave men and women of ICE law enforcement, this criminal is OUT of our country.”
Despite her duty as a judge to remain impartial, Dugan allegedly interfered when she saw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents outsider her courtroom.
She is accused of intentionally directing ICE away from Flores-Ruiz and helping him evade arrest on April 18, 2025. Flores-Ruiz was at the courthouse for a pre-trial hearing in Dugan’s courtroom for domestic battery charges.
The Associated Press reported Flores-Ruiz pleaded guilty in September to illegally reentering the United States after he reached a deal with prosecutors.
Flores-Ruiz pleaded “no contest” on Oct. 13 to beating his roommate during a dispute over the music volume in their apartment, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
DHS tweeted on Friday afternoon that he was deported and included a news clip with video of Dugan confronting agents in the hallway. DHS also issued a news release but did not say whether he was sent back to his native Mexico or some other destination.
Flores-Ruiz entered the U.S. illegally in 2013 and was arrested by Border Patrol in Nogales, Ariz., and was removed to Mexico. According to court documents, he reentered the country a few days later, making his way to Milwaukee where he worked in restaurants for about 12 years.
He chose to commit a felony by illegally re-entering the U.S. at an unknown date and time, DHS said.
“If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and remove you from our country,” McLaughlin said. “That’s a promise.”
In April, Flores-Ruiz was in court related to local battery charges for beating up two people. He was charged in March with three counts of misdemeanor battery after he got into a fight with his roommate and another victim.
“[He] beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly, they both had to go to the hospital,” Attorney General Pam Bondi previously told reporters when charges were lodged against Dugan.
U.S. immigration agents learned he was in the country illegally after the Milwaukee County Jail submitted his fingerprints to federal databases, according to court documents.
The Associated Press reported Flores-Ruiz spent most of the past seven months in jail. State prosecutors dropped two of the battery charges against him in October after he agreed to plead no contest to the third.
U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper sentenced him to time served on the illegal entry charge on Nov. 5, according to another AP report, after he agreed to plead guilty and promised not to fight deportation.
“I very much hope you can find a way to make a living back home rather than coming back here,” Pepper told Flores-Ruiz during the hearing in Milwaukee.
Dugan is accused of helping Flores-Ruiz evade federal agents by stalling them in the hallway and delaying the defendant’s scheduled hearing, even though witnesses were there to testify. She directed Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to leave out a private jury door.
FBI agents arrested Dugan at the same courthouse on April 25. In May, a grand jury in Wisconsin indicted her on charges of obstruction and intentionally concealing an individual set for deportation. She faces up to six years in prison and a $350,000 fine if convicted on both counts.
Dugan hired a powerhouse legal team and tried to get the charges tossed out on the grounds of judicial immunity.
She’s set to stand trial beginning Dec. 15, with jury selection for the trial is set to begin on Dec. 11. She could face up to six years in federal prison if convicted.
Dugan has pleaded not guilty and filed a motion to have the charges dropped, saying she was acting in her official capacity as a judge. She also claims that the federal government violated Wisconsin’s sovereignty by disrupting a state courtroom and prosecuting a state judge, Fox News Digital reported.
In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph issued an official recommendation that the case should proceed and sent it on to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, a progressive Bill Clinton appointee and the trial judge.
In his August 2025 ruling, Judge Adelman rejected Dugan’s legal defense that she was entitled to judicial immunity for her actions. He stated there is no “firmly established judicial immunity barring criminal prosecution of judges for judicial acts.”
WISN 12 News reported that new court documents filed Nov. 7 indicate that on the morning of April 18, agents from ICE, DEA, FBI, and Customs and Border Patrol arrived outside Dugan’s courtroom with a warrant for Flores-Ruiz’s arrest.
Dugan’s clerk notified her about the agents outside the courtroom. Minutes later, Dugan reportedly told another judge to “come with me” to “check for a warrant,” instructing the other judge to “keep her robe on.”
Federal prosecutors allege Dugan interfered with agents there to make an arrest by falsely informing them that they needed a judicial warrant to make the arrest.
According to the documents, prosecutors say the other judge was “uncomfortable with Judge Dugan’s behavior and tone,” which witnesses described as “heated,” “visually upset,” “yelling,” and a “mix of anger and irritation.”
Footage shows her confronting agents in the hallway and leading them to the chief judge’s office at the end of the hall and then re-entering her courtroom.
Moments later, Flores-Ruiz and his attorney can be seen exiting the courtroom into the same public hallway and walking toward the public elevators. Federal agents arrested Flores-Ruiz outside of the courthouse after a short foot chase.
According to the documents, Dugan told another colleague she was “in the doghouse because I tried to help that guy go through the hallway,” WISN reported.
In a separate filing on Nov. 7, Dugan’s legal team maintained their claim that “Judge Dugan acted lawfully, doing acts that were part of her job,” emphasizing their push to dismiss the case.
Dugan has denied any wrongdoing, claiming she has the “right to run her courtroom the way she sees fit” and acted within her authority as a judge.
