Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now formalizing on paper what it’s already been doing at an escalated rate since Donald Trump took office and unleashed his mass deportation agents. “Federal immigration authorities formalized a policy Wednesday to send deportation agents to federal, state and local courthouses to make arrests, dismissing complaints from judges and advocacy groups that it instills fear among crime victims, witnesses and family members”:
The two-page directive from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it will enter courthouses only for specific targets, such as convicted criminals, gang members, public safety threats and immigrants who have been previously deported or ordered to leave. Family, friends and witnesses won’t be picked up for deportation but ICE leaves a caveat for “special circumstances.”
The policy, signed by ICE acting director Thomas Homan, says immigration agents should generally avoid arrests in non-criminal areas of the court, like family court and small claims, unless it supervisor approves.
But ICE agents have already been trampling on the justice system by stalking courthouses in order to take immigrants into custody. In New York state last year, courthouse arrests and attempted arrests surged 900 percent according to one immigrant rights group. Early on in Trump’s presidency, ICE arrested a transgender woman in Texas as she attended court in order to secure a protective order against an abuser.
Not to mention the fact that immigrant communities have little reason to believe ICE will stick to not arresting non-targets—this is callously called a “collateral arrest”—because ICE has already been flouting its own policy designating schools and churches “sensitive locations” in order to make arrests near there. Mass deportation architect Homan has in fact promised more collatoral arrests in pro-immigrant states like California.
Homan, a truly deplorable human being who recently reiterated that he’ll “never back down” from his statement that undocumented immigrants with no criminal record should be living in a perpetual state of fear, appears to be blaming his 21st century police state takeover of the justice system on immigrant communities themselves:
ICE— in a not-so-subtle jab at “sanctuary cities” that limit work with immigration authorities —said “increasing unwillingness of some jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the safe and orderly transfer of targeted aliens inside their prisons and jails has necessitated additional at-large arrests.”
Immigration agents made courtroom arrests under the Obama administration, but the pace appears to have picked up under President Donald Trump, whose administration has seen a roughly 40 percent surge in arrests overall and has casted a much wider net.
What this so-called “law and order” administration is doing is actually endangering public safety. “We encourage the vulnerable to come to our courthouses for help,” California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote last year. “But immigration arrests, or the fear of arrests at or near courthouses, disrupt court activities and the lives of those seeking justice … one judge said there was ‘near hysteria’ among civil litigants recently when they thought immigration agents were about to raid a courthouse.”
According to the Associated Press, “Cantil-Sakauye sounded modestly encouraged” regarding ICE’s claim non-targets would not be swept up, commenting that “if followed correctly, this written directive is a good start. It’s essential that we protect the integrity of our state court justice system and protect the people who use it.” If, being the key word, and since when has this administration ever had any regard for the rules, much less the justice system?
