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.
