Under pressure from litigation, Thomas Brophy, acting director of Boston’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, told federal judge Mark Wolf during a court proceeding that he has ordered a stop to arrests of undocumented immigrants who are visiting government offices in Massachusetts in their attempts to adjust their immigration status:
Brophy said he told his officers “we were going to focus on public safety. We were not going to conduct those arrests [at government offices] unless there was a threat to national security or public safety.”
Brophy said that the practice had occurred under his predecessor, and he changed it when he took over the job in February. It was unclear Tuesday if the new approach represents a change nationally, or only in Massachusetts. An ICE spokesman declined to clarify it.
While a potentially major development, remember that this is also ICE, and ICE lies, so actions, not words, are what immigrant rights advocates will be watching. “In January alone,” the Boston Globe reported, “ICE arrested seven people at immigration offices in Massachusetts and Rhode Island” and kept others detained for months on end, which has earned swift rebuke from judges:
Over the past year, federal judges in the Boston courthouse have been unusually outspoken in criticizing immigration cases, as the Trump administration steps up apprehensions and detentions. The critical judges include two Obama nominees, a Clinton nominee, and Wolf, a Reagan nominee.
Wolf, a Reagan appointee, “recently ruled that ICE broke its own rules when the agency decided to extend the detention of two immigrants in custody without giving them proper notice to contest it.” In one dramatic moment, Wolf played a video of a child being reunited with a detained parent and asked Brophy, “do you see when you look at that video ... that when the government breaks the law it can have profound human consequences?” Brophy replied, “I do.”
Rhode Island mom Lilian Calderon knows this pain first-hand. In January, she was nearly deported for trying to get in line for legal status. The undocumented mom of two and her husband, a U.S. citizen, had gone to an immigration interview with photographs and documents testifying to the authenticity of their relationship in hand, only to have ICE arrest her. At that time, Wolf called Calderon’s arrest “part of a pattern,” and this week continued to turn up the fire on ICE:
Wolf questioned ICE officials about the arrest of Lucimar de Souza, a Brazilian immigrant married to an American who was separated from her three children for three months after she was detained at a government office in downtown Boston. She was released on May 8.
Wolf asked why ICE decided to keep her and another Brazilian immigrant, the father of two boys in Connecticut, in custody after Brophy realized they had not been given the required 30-day notice.
Brophy said he thought the solution would be to schedule another review with the proper notice. Even though that would mean keeping them locked up another month? Wolf asked.
“I guess so,” Brophy replied.
Brophy, said that he brought in ICE officials to train his staff on detention regulations after he learned of the violations.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had sued to release Calderon, “arguing that Calderon’s continued detention violated her constitutional right to due process and federal immigration laws and regulations.” Both Calderon and de Souza were again in court, but this time watching from the audience, as Wolf, truly an unsung hero for immigrants, asked Brophy if he had any kids:
“Three,” he replied.
“Do you think about what it would feel like to be facing the threat of deportation and be separated from your spouse and children for six weeks, five weeks, four weeks?” Wolf asked.
“I don’t know if I’ve thought about that, but I understand,” Brophy said.
Sitting nearby, de Souza and Calderon fought back tears as the video played.
“Now he knows my emotions,” de Souza said during a break in the hearing. “He has [kids]. That was my kid.”
If some relief can happen in one state, it can happen in two. If it can happen in two, it can happen in three. And if it can happen in three, it can happen everywhere. But, again, it’s actions, not words, that matter here. “We will keep searching for the whole truth about what was done to our clients,” said the ACLU’s Matt Segal, “and we will keep fighting for court-ordered relief to protect them, and others like them, from unlawful actions by ICE. Nothing we heard today reduces the need for that relief.”