A court commissioner in Walworth County says he was forced out of his position after he asked to see an immigration arrest warrant from a sheriff’s deputy trying to take a man into custody.
Peter Navis, the county’s circuit court commissioner for the past four years, said he resigned after he was told he could voluntarily leave or be fired over the July 15 incident in his courtroom.
The incident is the latest flare-up between judges and the Trump administration as it conducts a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. And it underscores the lack of universal rules on how to deal with immigration arrests in courtrooms.
One of the highest-profile examples is that of Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan, who is charged with obstructing federal officers for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant elude arrest.
In the Walworth County case, Navis said he was told by three of the county’s judges that Navis had misstated their position about whether immigration warrants had to be shown before an arrest can be made in court.
Judges appoint and can fire commissioners, who exercise similar functions as judges, such as accepting pleas and holding preliminary hearings, in the early stages of a case.
Navis said he was wrong to make a sweeping statement about the judges’ stance, but said he stands by his position that deputies should have shown him a warrant before making an arrest.
“There is no avoiding this is a larger issue in the country about how these things are handled … Every state and county in the country probably has to confront this issue,” Navis, 45, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview.
“The fact that there were no discussions about how this would happen in Walworth County, and that it was happening in my courtroom for the first time, made it stressful.”
Navis recalled an emotional scene in his courtroom as he objected to the deputies taking the man into custody without showing a warrant. But Navis said he couldn’t prevent it.
“They are the deputies,” he said, “so it’s not like I could physically get down from my bench and stop them from doing it.”
Routine day at Walworth County courthouse turns stressful, chaotic
It was a typical traffic day in Navis’ court on July 15. Between 30 and 50 people were crammed in the courtroom.
Then, about 15 minutes before the first case was to be called, a deputy told Navis that someone was going to be arrested on an immigration warrant, Navis recalled.
Deputies often make arrests in traffic court, Navis said, but usually on behalf of other counties. This arrest was for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Navis said he called Walworth County Judge Kristine Drettwan for guidance. Navis said Drettwan told him how she would handle the matter. He declined to share what Drettwan said.
She then told him he had authority to conduct matters in his courtroom “as he saw fit,” Navis recalled.
Drettwan did not return calls and emails seeking comment.
Navis said he asked the deputies about the arrest plan and to see the warrant. Deputies refused on both counts, he said.
“In other situations, the warrants were issued by courts in Wisconsin and they are readily available,” Navis said. “The type of warrant and authority claimed was different and that’s why I asking for it, to see if there was lawful authority.”
In a transcript of the hearing obtained by the Journal Sentinel, Navis said the sheriff’s office was failing to follow a court order that deputies show a warrant.
“The failure to inform the Court of this impending action calls into question whether this Court can trust the Sheriff’s Office in the future,” Navis said.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Herrmann, said Navis had no right to see the warrant.
Navis countered that the defendant, named in the transcript as Enrrique Onan Zamora Castro, was out on a signature bond but was now being detained without evidence of a warrant.
According to online court records, Castro, 33, of Milwaukee, was facing charges of operating without a valid license for the second time in three years. Wisconsin court records show he was previously convicted of felony stalking and disorderly conduct in Milwaukee County, in 2023 and 2025. He received probation in both cases.
Navis then added that he had been instructed by the county’s judges to prevent an arrest without a warrant.
A short time later, ICE officers appeared with deputies to make a second arrest, according to the transcript.
At that point, Navis says, “I’ve been instructed by the judges of this county to require warrants before individuals are detained in my courtroom.”
Judges, sheriff’s office decline to comment
Walworth County Clerk of Courts Michele Jacobs, who learned of the incident soon after, said deputies routinely arrest people on warrants in the courthouse.
“Deputies were executing a warrant, something they have done for years in the courtroom … The commissioner was asking questions about it and it became an incident,” Jacobs said. “It did not go the way it usually goes.”
Walworth County Sheriff Dave Gerber, who was elected in 2022, did not return calls and emails from a Journal Sentinel reporter seeking comment. A spokeswoman said the sheriff had no comment.
ICE officials did not respond to questions about the case.
The incident soon came to the attention of Walworth County’s four judges: Drettwan, Daniel Johnson, Estee E. Scholtz and presiding judge, David Reddy. Scholtz beat Navis for an open judge’s seat in April 2024.
Navis said Scholtz, Johnson and Drettwan met with him late in the day on July 21; Reddy was not present.
According to Navis, the judges said he misstated their position. However, Navis said they didn’t ask him to explain and gave him an ultimatum: resign or be fired.
Jacobs, the clerk of courts, confirmed she too was at the meeting, but declined to comment because it is a personnel matter.
None of the four Walworth County judges returned calls or emails seeking comment.
Navis, who according to Jacobs made $138,195, formerly worked as a corporation counsel and a private judge.
The county is accepting applications for a new court commissioner and hopes to have a new person hired in early fall, she said.
After Navis said he would resign, he was allowed to gather his personal belongings in the presence of a county employee and then was escorted out of the building.
“It was a very normal course of what we would do if someone resigned or terminated. They no longer have free rein of the building,” she said.
Walworth County has historically cooperated with ICE, according to ACLU
Walworth County, home to about 100,000 people and located in south-central Wisconsin on the Illinois border, has been in the news before because of immigration.
As a wave of Nicaraguan immigrants arrived in the college town of Whitewater, critics including Donald Trump — who was not president at the time — blamed crime and other issues on the new arrivals. City officials disputed that.
Walworth County has historically been cooperative with ICE efforts, drawing criticism from ACLU of Wisconsin.
As Trump’s immigration crackdown has continued, other Wisconsin counties have also found themselves caught between federal enforcement priorities and local authority.
In Milwaukee, ICE and other federal agents made several arrests in the Milwaukee County courthouse, raising questions about their authority in local courthouses.
In some cases, local prosecutors have clashed with federal immigration officials over attempts to deport crime defendants or witnesses before their cases conclude.
In Dane County, a woman who ICE says is in the U.S. illegally is charged with drunk driving resulting in the death of two teens. State prosecutors are seeking to have the defendant returned to state custody to ensure ICE does not deport her before she can face charges.
In Milwaukee County, a man is charged with trying to get a victim in his case deported before he could testify against him.
In the case of Dugan, her legal team is arguing she was acting in her legal capacity as a judge. Both sides are awaiting how U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman will rule on the defense’s motion to dismiss the charges.
Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this article.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Walworth County court commissioner says he was forced out after questioning ICE warrant
Reporting by John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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