ICE directive on courthouse arrests of immigrants draws mixed response

California’s top judge released an approving statement Wednesday in response to a directive from the head of U.S. immigration enforcement about his agents’ activities in state courthouses.

“If followed correctly, this written directive is a good start. It’s essential that we protect the integrity of our state court justice system and protect the people who use it,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in an emailed statement.

Released in January and signed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Thomas Homan, the memo directed ICE agents to conduct enforcement actions in and around courthouses “discreetly” to minimize their impact on court proceedings. It noted that because people entering courthouses are usually screened for weapons and contraband, they were a safer place to make arrests.

In an apparent reference to state and local governments that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials, also called “sanctuary jurisdictions,” the memo added that courthouse arrests “are often necessitated by the unwillingness of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the transfer of custody of aliens from their prisons and jails.”

The statement by Cantil-Sakauye is the latest chapter in a war of words with the Trump administration over what the chief justice said was ICE’s increased targeting of courthouses for immigration arrests.

She wrote a letter in March 2017 to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly objecting to the practice and what she said was its chilling effect on access to justice.

Sessions and Kelly shot back with a letter of their own in March that called Cantil-Sakauye’s portrayal of ICE agents stalking courts “troubling” and blamed California’s state and local policies of non-cooperation with federal law enforcement agents for the practice.

“As a result, ICE officers and agents are required to locate and arrest these aliens in public places, rather than in secure jail facilities,” Sessions and Kelly wrote.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón weighed in on the debate in an emailed statement Wednesday.

“I know it to be a fundamental truth that our neighborhoods are safer when people from all communities can work with law enforcement and come to our courthouses without fear that their immigration status will be used against them,” Gascón said. “Any policy that supports immigration agents making arrests in our courthouses serves as a deterrent to participation.”

While neither ICE nor the courts have provided statistics that such arrests have increased under the Trump administration, Cantil-Sakauye in December said judges in California continued to tell her about the practice.

“I know it’s happening,” she said. “It was a principle that needed to be stated.”