Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continued to arrest people in and around New York courthouses in 2019, flouting a state directive to curtail such operations, according to a new report.
An annual survey of ICE activity, released Tuesday by the advocacy group Immigrant Defense Project, found that 127 people were arrested by federal agents in or around courthouses last year. Most of those arrests came outside court buildings in New York City, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens.
The figures represent a decrease from 2018's total of 195, but a more than tenfold increase from the year before President Donald Trump took office, according to the report.
This past April, in response to protests against ICE's growing presence around courthouses, the New York State Office of Court Administration released new guidelines requiring agents to present a federal judicial warrant or order before making an arrest inside a court building. But according to the Immigrant Defense Project, the agency has not meaningfully changed their conduct.
"From April 2019 onward, ICE used tactics that skirted the directive by moving their arrests to court entrances and exits, while still surveilling people inside courthouses," the report reads. "In some cases, ICE violated the directive outright—refusing to identify themselves as required, failing to wait for a supervising judge to review a warrant, and escorting an individual out of the courthouse to handcuff them outside."
Attorneys and lawmakers have longed warned that such actions contribute to a "chilling effect," discouraging immigrants from appearing before a judge, either as witnesses or defendants, to the detriment of public safety.
"This is obviously a great concern," State Senator Brad Hoylman told Gothamist/WNYC. "Courts should be sanctuaries for justice, not hunting grounds for federal ICE agents to round up immigrants."
On Tuesday, Hoylman joined activists with the Immigrant Defense Project in Albany to call for passage of the Protect Our Courts Act, which would prohibit ICE arrests without a warrant both in and around courthouses. The legislation failed last year, as some lawmakers apparently felt the state court's directive would be sufficient.
"The problem persists at wildly unacceptable rates," said Hoylman. "We need to take every step in our power to reassure the immigrant community of New York that they are safe when they go to court."
Reached for comment on Wednesday, ICE spokesperson Rachael Yong Yow said "we have not had an opportunity to review the report" but maintained that ICE has been provided "broad at-large arrest authority by Congress and may lawfully arrest removable aliens in courthouses, which is often necessitated by local policies that prevent law enforcement from cooperating with ICE efforts to arrange for a safe and orderly transfer of custody in the setting of a state or county prison or jail and put political rhetoric before public safety."
