ICE Arrests At NYC Courthouses Skyrocket 600%, Report Says

NEW YORK, NY — New York may be a so-called sanctuary city, but many immigrants aren't safe in its courthouses, according to a report released Wednesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and attempted arrests in the city's courts have skyrocketed by more than 600 percent this year compared to 2016, the Immigrant Defense Project's report says.

As of Wednesday, ICE agents have arrested or tried to arrest 78 people at courts across the five boroughs this year — including one man in Brooklyn on Tuesday who had no criminal record. That's up from 11 reported incidents in 2016, all of which occurred in New York City.

The city's incidents this year account for more than two thirds of the 110 reported at courts across the state — an increase of nearly 900 percent from last year, the Immigrant Defense Project said. The New York Daily News first reported the IDP's findings.

"The exponential increase in ICE courthouse arrests reflects a dangerous new era in enforcement and immigrant rights violations," Lee Wang, a staff attorney for the immigration-rights group, said in a statement. "Immigrants seeking justice in the criminal, family, and civil courts should not have to fear for their freedom when doing so."

ICE is going after immmigrants who have no criminal record or are defending themselves from minor charges, the report says. More than 20 percent of those targeted this year had no criminal history, and the majority were in court for misdemeanors or non-criminal violations, such as public drunkenness.

ICE agents have arrested two immigrants with no criminal records in two days at the Brooklyn criminal court, according to advocates and tweets from defense lawyers. Those followed ICE arrests of four other immigrants in September, three of whom had no criminal record, DNAinfo reported then.

Immigration agents don't stick to criminal courts, the IDP's report says — a handful of the arrests happened at family courts, youth courts, community courts and even a Human Trafficking Intervention Court, a special court for human trafficking victims facing prostitution charges.

The state-run courts are an apparent hole in New York City's sanctuary policy, which limits city agencies' communication and cooperation with ICE. Court officers helped ICE make arrests in at least a dozen cases this year, the IDP said.

The state Office of Court Administration counted 86 ICE appearances in its courts statewide, including 70 in New York City, spokesman Lucian Chalfen said in an email. That number does not include arrests made outside courthouses, Chalfen said.

OCA policy prohibits law-enforcement officers from making arrests inside courtrooms and requires court staff to tell the judge if a party to a case will be arrested. Court officers don't "facilitate" ICE arrests, but try to ensure immigration agents' "activity does not compromise public safety in the courthouse, which is our policy with any law enforcement agency," Chalfen said.

"We have conveyed on both a local and national level to ICE and other federal officials our ‘serious concerns about ICE activity at certain locations, such as Family Court and Human Trafficking Court,’ " Chalfen told Patch.

ICE did not respond to an email from Patch seeking comment. A spokeswoman for the agency told the Daily News that its officers only enter courthouses after exhausting other options, and follow state rules in doing so.

The OCA and state lawmakers should change court policy to better protect immigrants in courthouses, said Tina Luongo, the head of criminal defense practice for The Legal Aid Society.

"These arrests plague our clients in every borough and deter immigrants and others from seeking services offered by the court that should always be accessible," Luongo said in a statement.

(Lead image: The Brooklyn Criminal Court is pictured on Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Image from Google Maps)