As part of its efforts to undermine protections for immigrants in the state, ICE has increasingly used courthouses to surveil, arrest, and terrorize immigrants. Beginning in 2017, IDP began tracking ICE raids at NY courthouses and documented an alarming 1700% increase in ICE courthouse arrests and attempted arrests across New York State under the Trump administration.
IDP and allies in the ICE Out of Courts Coalition have campaigned steadily over three years to fight back against ICE using courthouses as a means to trap immigrant New Yorkers. Today’s legislative win builds on last year’s victory when the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA) announced new court rules prohibiting ICE from arresting individuals in state courthouses without a judicial warrant or judicial order.
The campaign notched another win last month when New York State Attorney General Letitia James won a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over its illegal policy of making ICE arrests at state courthouses.
The ICE Out of Courts Coalition welcomed today’s historic action by the legislature and applauded Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Michaelle Solages for championing the Protect Our Courts bill in Albany. The passage of this bill ensures that New Yorkers are permanently protected from this harmful ICE practice by codifying the legal privilege from civil arrest at the heart of last month’s federal court order. The bill also creates avenues for anyone arrested by ICE at a courthouse to hold the agency accountable.
“Over the past few years, ICE has repeatedly sent a clear message that it would stop at nothing to achieve its cruel, dehumanizing and destructive criminalizing and deportation agenda. In response to our coalition’s work documenting and illustrating the devastating impacts of ICE’s activities, New York’s courts and legislature have taken decisive action to protect our rights,” said
Mizue Aizeki, Deputy Director of the Immigrant Defense Project. “By passing the Protect Our Courts Act, New York’s message to ICE is loud and clear—ICE is the threat and its harmful practices must stop.”
As courts begin to reopen while communities of color are still fighting the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Protect Our Courts Act is vital to the protection of the immigrant communities hit hard by the virus. ICE policing at courts would only add another layer of distress to undocumented immigrants who seek access to the courts for housing rights, to defend themselves, and to seek protection.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, ICE targeting of NYC included a 400% increase in raids reports to IDP in the first 11 weeks of 2020 compared to the last 11 weeks of 2019. IDP also released a report earlier this year detailing how ICE expanded its courthouse operations under the Trump administration. ICE tactics in 2020 were among the most aggressive and militarized IDP has seen in recent years, and as the state begins to reopen following the height of the pandemic, ICE raids are picking back up. The federal government has also deployed ICE officers to cities and towns in militarized and violent operations against protestors in recent weeks.
With the bill passed by both the Senate and Assembly, the Protect Our Courts Act now awaits Governor Cuomo’s signature.
Senator Brad Hoylman said, "Donald Trump’s heartless immigration policy is a cruel perversion of justice. We cannot allow our courthouses to become a hunting ground for federal agents attempting to round up immigrant New Yorkers. Already, ICE arrests in or around courthouses in New York have spiked by 1,700% since Donald Trump took office. The Protect Our Courts Act, which I’m proud to sponsor with Assemblymember Solages, will get ICE out of our courthouses and make our justice system more just. It will allow all New Yorkers to attend judicial proceedings, whether as a litigant, witness, or family member. I’m grateful to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for working with us to pass this crucial legislation, and thankful to the advocates and immigrant New Yorkers, including the Immigrant Defense Project, who made a clear, compelling moral case for why New York must pass this bill."
“The American judicial system was founded on the ideals of equity and equal accessibility to justice for all. The Protect Our Courts legislation is simply reaffirming our commitment to those very principles,” said
Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, Chair-elect of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus. “We have seen Federal ICE agents make a concerted effort to use courthouses as a means of entrapment, which in turn has created a hostile environment for individuals seeking recourse from New York courts. I am grateful for the diligent efforts of the Immigrant Defense Project, New York Immigration Coalition, 32BJ, and other advocates in prioritizing these critical protections for all New Yorkers.”
Click here to keep reading the rest of this release, including statements from other members of the ICE Out of Courts coalition.
