NY's Top Judge Should Boot ICE From Courthouses, Activists Say

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — New York State’s top judge should bar immigration agents from state courts after a spate of courthouse arrests this year, attorneys and activists demanded Thursday.

At a rally outside Brooklyn Borough Hall, nearly 200 public defenders and immigrant-rights activists called on Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to change the state court policy that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to "snatch" immigrants when they come to court.

The practice makes the courts dangerous for immigrants trying to navigate the justice system and discourages them from showing up in court as required, activists and attorneys said.

"They can say to ICE, 'You are no longer welcome here inside our walls,'" said Deborah Wright, president of the Association for Legal Aid Attorneys.

Wright's union for public defenders organized Thursday’s rally after ICE agents arrested an immigrant in Brooklyn criminal court last Tuesday, prompting public defenders there to walk out in protest.

That was one of 40 arrests in New York City's courthouses and 53 statewide this year, according to the Office of Court Administration, the state agency that oversees the courts. ICE agents have been appearing in courthouses, often in plain clothes, much more often in the last year amid a nationwide immigration crackdown, attorneys and activists have said.

OCA policy allows ICE and other law enforcement agencies to perform arrests in courthouses so long as they inform court staff, who are supposed to tell judges if an arrest is imminent. DiFiore, who heads the state Court of Appeals, has the authority as chief judge to change OCA policy.

Attorneys say OCA's court officers often help ICE make arrests — including last week's, in which witnesses said officers blocked the man's attorney from talking with him immediately after ICE apprehended him.

ICE agents' presence in courthouses — and the help court officers give them — create a climate of fear that deters immigrants accused of crimes from coming to court, making it harder to defend themselves, attorneys and activists said. That undercuts New York City's "sanctuary" policies aimed at protecting immigrants without legal status, activists said.

The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys has drafted a letter to DiFiore, who was appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, asking her to remove ICE's access to New York's courts.

"How is it that my new home can no longer guarantee access to justice to people like me?" said Luis Mancheno, a public defender in the Bronx who came to the U.S. seeking asylum from Ecuador. "How is it that the place where one is born now determines whether one can see a judge? How is that for a value in a state and a city that praises themselves to be by and for immigrants?"

The OCA has asked federal officials to treat buildings like family courts and human trafficking courts as "sensitive" locations, like churches and schools, from which ICE agents are generally barred, OCA spokesman Lucian Chalfen said in an email. But ICE has primarily targeted criminal courts, which are open to the public, Chalfen said.

ICE seeks immigrants at courthouses because they're screened before going inside, making arrests there "far safer for everyone involved," ICE spokeswoman Rachel Yong Yow said in a statement. The agency says it exhausts other options before going to courts and follows local rules when its agents enter them.

Chalfen denied that court officers are complicit with arrests. They do not coordinate with, facilitate or impede actions by outside law enforcement, including ICE agents, when they effect an arrest inside New York State Courthouses," he said.

"We remain committed to the safety and security of all New Yorkers who use our courthouses throughout the State," Chalfen said.

(Lead image: Nearly 200 attorneys and immigrant-rights activists rallied at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Thursday to call on Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from New York State courthouses. Photo by Noah Manskar)