Advocates for immigrant rights in Oregon plan asked a state committee Friday to approve a rule banning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making wholesale arrests of immigrants at or around the state’s courthouses.
Anger over immigration arrests at courthouses has flared since Donald Trump was elected president. Within days of Trump taking office in January 2017, advocates for immigrants began reporting some highly public arrests or attempted arrests by ICE agents wearing plainclothes and offering little or no explanation.
Advocates say the arrests have had a chilling effect on immigrants who now fear stepping foot into courthouses to conduct a wide range of business, including paying parking tickets, filing for restraining orders, testifying as a witness or even facing criminal charges.
“ICE intrusions in and around Oregon courthouses jeopardize the court’s ability to administer justice as required under the Oregon Constitution,” Nadia Dahab, an attorney at the law firm Stoll Berne, said in a news release. “Fear of deportation keeps immigrants from reporting crimes and participating in court proceedings.”
Civil rights activists and immigrant supporters asked Oregon’s Uniform Trial Court Rules Committee to support a new rule banning immigration arrests in and around state courthouses unless ICE agents have a warrant from a judge. The request is backed by the ACLU of Oregon, Innovation Law Lab, the nonprofit Latina empowerment group Adelante Mujeres, Causa Oregon and other immigrants’ rights groups.
The committee makes recommendations about rules, but the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court or the entire high court makes final decisions, according to the state courts website.
Ramon Valdez, who works for Innovation Law Lab, said he and other groups also have asked Chief Justice Martha Walters to make the change.
ICE officials say they’ve long arrested individuals in or around courthouses and that courthouses are often a reliable place for their agents to make arrests because undocumented people can be difficult to find out in the community.
Valdez said immigrant rights groups have asked ICE for data that would show whether arrests have increased since Trump took office, but have been told the agency doesn’t track those numbers. Valdez, however, said it’s clear that arrests and emphasis have increased in Oregon.
According to the ACLU of Oregon, six states -- California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington -- have limited or blocked ICE agents from making arrests in courthouses.
Tanya Roman, a spokeswoman for ICE, wrote in an email Friday that the agency doesn’t comment on pending legal matters.
"However, the idea that a state law can bind the hands of a federal law enforcement agency is wrong,” Roman said in the email.
Roman also said the Immigration and Nationality Act gives ICE officers the authority to arrest foreign-born people without a warrant from a judge.
“In fact, no judge in this country has the authority to issue a warrant for a civil immigration violation,” Roman said. "Congress, by statute, vested this authorization solely to supervisory immigration officers.”
-- Aimee Green
o_aimee
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