Courthouses aren’t included alongside churches, hospitals, and schools in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “sensitive locations” policy declaring them generally off-limits to arrests, but they should be. “Immigration arrests, or the fear of arrests at or near courthouses,” California’s Supreme Court chief justice wrote last year, “disrupt court activities and the lives of those seeking justice.” Now, nearly 70 more former judges are joining her call.
“Surveys of law enforcement and legal service providers,” they wrote in a letter to acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello, “confirm that ICE’s reliance on immigration arrests in courthouses instills fear in clients and deters them from seeking justice in a court building. Affidavits detail persons ‘terrified’ to request orders protecting them from violence or enforcing child support, to serve as witnesses, and to defend themselves.”
Last year, advocates said that arrests and attempted arrests by ICE in New York courthouses had surged 900 percent. In one of the most despicable examples, ICE agents arrested a transgender woman in Texas as she attended court in order to secure a protective order against an abuser. According to the Immigrant Defense Project, 20 percent of the immigrants arrested in and around New York courthouses were there for traffic violations.
ICE arrests trample on justice by frightening people away. “We understand that ICE favors courthouse arrests because it considers courts to be safe environments where officers are confident they can operate without danger,” the judges continued. “But it is exactly that sense of safety that we as judges tried to foster for anyone seeking access to justice, and that we believe ICE’s courthouse activities put at risk.”