Daily $500 fine imposed until agency complies with January discovery order
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt on Tuesday and ordered the federal government to pay a $500 daily fine until it complies with a January court order to create digital copies of communications from the personal cell phones of more than 800 immigration agents. Judge Frimpong also directed the government to reimburse the plaintiffs’ attorneys for the legal costs of obtaining the records.
The January order, part of discovery in litigation over immigration enforcement operations in the Los Angeles area in 2025, required the government to expedite the creation of those digital copies.
During a June hearing, attorneys for DHS acknowledged that the agency had not produced the records. The government said it was processing the phones at a pace of three devices every two weeks, and plaintiffs estimated that the work would take nearly four years to complete at that rate.