‘Unprecedented’: ICE Officers Operating Inside Bay Area Immigration Courts, Lawyers Say

In a move Bay Area immigrant advocates say is a first, federal immigration agents are conducting enforcement operations inside immigration courthouses.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers showed up in the halls and waiting rooms of immigration courts in San Francisco, Concord and Sacramento this week, according to attorneys and others at the courts.

Advocates reported just one local arrest — of a man at the Concord court. But multiple arrests have occurred in San Diego, Phoenix and elsewhere.

“It’s outrageous and unprecedented,” said Sean McMahon, a senior attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. “People have the right to apply for asylum. They have the right to be heard if the government’s asserting that they’re deportable. And ICE is scaring people away from doing that.”

If an immigrant fails to appear for a hearing, they automatically lose their case and are ordered deported in absentia.

McMahon said ICE officers were at the San Francisco courthouse every day this week, questioning people entering or leaving courtrooms, and appeared at the Sacramento and Concord courts on at least one day.

Attorneys say they’ve observed ICE prosecutors moving to dismiss charges against immigrants who could be subject to a fast-track removal process. McMahon said they believe the prosecutors are coordinating with ICE officers in the corridors to conduct arrests as people leave the courtrooms.

ICE officials acknowledged the courthouse operations in a statement that read, in part: “Secretary Noem is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law.”

ICE went on to say that it considers immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally within the past two years to be subject to the fast-track deportation process — called expedited removal — that does not require an immigration court hearing. Since expedited removal was enacted by Congress in 1996, it has been primarily applied to people at the border or who recently entered the country and are encountered within 100 miles of the border. The Trump administration has expanded its interpretation of the law to cover people anywhere in the U.S. who can’t prove they’ve been here for at least two years.

ICE said it will screen people it arrests under the statute for a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country, which would allow them to apply for asylum here.

“If no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation,” the statement said.

President Donald Trump pledged “mass deportations” of at least a million people in the first year of his term. In an effort to carry that out, the administration has stripped away a variety of due process protections, and the Republican-controlled House of

Representatives just approved a massive budget increase for immigration enforcement.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security revoked a Biden-era policy limiting ICE enforcement in or near courthouses, as well as other “sensitive areas,” such as schools, hospitals and places of worship.

For ICE officers to be in the courthouses, advocates say they must receive permission from the Executive Office of Immigration Review, as the immigration court system is formally known.

“They’re certainly allowing it,” McMahon said. “There’s not just an awareness, but basically a tolerance of ICE’s presence at the court currently.”

He said that when volunteers who witnessed the arrest at the Concord immigration court on Wednesday began informing people of their legal rights, the court’s private security guards asked them to leave the facility.

When asked about ICE enforcement inside courthouses, EOIR spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly declined to comment.

Sergio Lopez, a volunteer coordinator with the Contra Costa Immigrant Rights Alliance, was at the Concord court on Wednesday and observed the arrest. He said ICE agents in plain clothes approached him and asked for identification.

“They were kind of aggressive,” he said. “It is a tactic to terrify people. I’ve been receiving texts and calls from a lot of people asking questions about if it’s safe to go to the court. ‘Is it OK, or I could be arrested?’”

Lopez said his organization plans to deploy legal observers to monitor ICE’s actions at the Concord courthouse.

Advocates also called on elected officials to speak up for immigrants’ due process rights and to increase funding for legal services.