New York Times
By Kirk Semple
May 26, 2014
Rosario
Socope, a Guatemalan immigrant in the country illegally, had an
unwelcome surprise waiting for her when she attended a pretrial hearing
on a felony charge at a
courthouse in Brooklyn this month. As she stepped out of the courtroom
into a public hallway, she was approached by immigration agents seeking
to deport her.
As her husband, her social worker and one of her lawyers looked on aghast, the agents hauled her away.
The
encounter was only the most recent in a long series of such cases
across the country that immigrant advocates and politicians say have
spread fear of courthouses among
immigrants and eroded their willingness to participate in the judicial
system, with profound civil rights implications.
“If
they feel like the court is not a safe place where they can go, they
may not show up to court,” said Nyasa Hickey, Ms. Socope’s immigration
lawyer.
For
years, even as the number of deportations has climbed to record levels,
immigration agents have generally refrained from questioning or
detaining immigrants in and
around locations deemed “sensitive,” including schools, houses of
worship, hospitals and public demonstrations.
Now a growing lobby of immigrants’ advocates and politicians is seeking to add courthouses to that list.
Advocates
argue that the use of courthouses by immigration officials deters
undocumented immigrants from exercising their constitutional rights of
due process; petitioning
for redress of grievances, such as wage claims against employers; and
satisfying their civic duties, such as paying traffic tickets.
Joanne
Lin, a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington, said she had heard about dozens of cases since the beginning
of 2013 in which immigrants
have been interrogated or detained at courthouses, including while
trying to attend hearings, get married or obtain a domestic violence
restraining order.
“I
have no doubt that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ms. Lin said.
“Courthouses need to be open, accessible and safe to all community
members, regardless of immigration
status.”
In
2011, John Morton, then the top official at Immigration and Customs and
Enforcement, an arm of Homeland Security commonly known as ICE, issued a
memorandum that reaffirmed
the agency’s list of “sensitive locations” where enforcement actions
were discouraged except under extraordinary circumstances, such as cases
involving dangerous felons.
In
March, top officials at the agency updated their guidance for field
agents conducting enforcement actions at or near courthouses, Virginia
Kice, an agency spokeswoman,
said. Agency officials declined to publicly discuss the contents of the
new courthouse guidance, saying it was confidential. But officials did
not modify the 2011 memo to extend its protections to courthouses.
Ms.
Lin said that in a private meeting in March with several top officials
from the agency, they told her that under the new guidelines agents
would conduct enforcement
actions at courthouses only against undocumented immigrants considered
top priorities, including those convicted of serious crimes and people
deemed a threat to public safety.
All
actions would occur in nonpublic areas of the courthouse, the officials
said, according to Ms. Lin. The officials also told her that
courthouses were “well suited”
for detentions because they were safer for the agents than confronting
someone in their home where encounters were more likely to escalate into
violence.
But
advocates contend that despite the new guidance, immigration agents
continue to use courthouses to go after immigrants who do not appear to
be the agency’s utmost
priority.
Ms.
Socope, 30, first entered the United States in 2008 but was picked up
at the border and immediately deported, Ms. Hickey said. She returned
the same year and moved
to New York City, where she was living with her husband in Brooklyn and
worked as a house cleaner.
Last
year, after an altercation with a landlord, Ms. Socope — who has never
been convicted of a crime, her lawyers said — was arrested and charged
with assault and criminal
possession of a weapon. Her lawyers and social worker were negotiating
for a plea that would include a mandate to enter an
alternative-to-incarceration program where she would receive help for
mental health issues and substance abuse, Ms. Hickey said.
According
to current federal enforcement priorities, Ms. Socope would appear to
be a tertiary priority, below groups of undocumented immigrants deemed
of greater concern,
including those convicted of serious crimes or considered threats to
public safety. And though her lawyers acknowledge that Ms. Socope did
not have immigration papers, they said that a public hallway in a
courthouse was no place to detain her. (Ms. Socope
has since been released under government supervision with a monitoring
bracelet strapped to her ankle while Ms. Hickey tries to block her
deportation.)
In
an interview last week, Ms. Socope said that as she was being taken
away, her initial thought was that her lawyers had somehow been involved
in the detention.
“I didn’t know how it happened,” she said, as she choked back tears.
“The arrest has totally broken her trust,” Ms. Hickey said.
Advocates
said they did not know how immigration agents had selected certain
immigrants for enforcement in courthouses. Ms. Lin said officials may be
using a combination
of methods, including randomly questioning immigrants who are doing
business at courthouses or cross-referencing criminal court dockets
against federal immigration databases.
Some
elected officials around the country have also been pressuring
immigration authorities on the issue. In Wisconsin, a group of state
lawmakers sent a letter to the
head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement requesting that he order a
halt to immigration interrogations and detentions at all Wisconsin
courthouses.
A
United States congresswoman from that state, Gwen Moore, a Democrat,
has been soliciting signatures from her colleagues for a similar letter,
which she plans to send
to Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, this week.
“By
deterring people from utilizing court services, ICE is creating a
culture of fear that undermines public safety and the ability of law
enforcement and the state’s
judicial system to carry out essential functions,” the letter reads.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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