Inset: President-elect Donald Trump on “Meet the Press” Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024 (NBC News/YouTube). Background: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting a raid (Fox News/YouTube). Inset: Screengrab from the ACLU’s ongoing social media campaign against mass deportations (ACLU/Instagram).
The Trump administration smacked New York with a lawsuit on Thursday, claiming it was assisting “illegal aliens’ evasion of federal law enforcement” and “prohibiting civil arrests of individuals” with a state law and orders that prevent immigration busts “at or near” courthouses.
“The POCA [Protect Our Courts Act] prohibits civil arrests of individuals while they are literally anywhere, so long as they are ‘going to’ or returning from’ a state courthouse,” the Justice Department charges in a 17-page complaint, referring to a 2020 law passed in the Empire State to prevent civil immigration arrests from happening while a person is attending or traveling to a state court proceeding.
Filed in federal court in Albany, the lawsuit accuses New York state officials of preventing federal agents from exercising “discretion and common sense in carrying out their duties, including in deciding where arrests and other enforcement actions should be undertaken,” the complaint says.
DOJ lawyers claim that conducting an immigration arrest at or near a courthouse “often reduces the risk of flight and safety risks to the public, law enforcement officers, and targets themselves” in the same way criminal warrants are executed.
“Contrary to this common-sense approach, the State of New York has issued a blanket prohibition, through its ‘Protect Our Courts Act,’ purporting to block civil immigration arrests and shield aliens, including those subject to lawful detention and removal orders, while they attend or travel to or from New York court proceedings,” the complaint says.
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Taking immigrants into custody at state courthouses has been a controversial tactic deployed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in recent months as President Donald Trump continues to prioritize and push for mass deportations and removals. It comes after the president issued an executive order, “Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border,” which directs the Department of Homeland of Security to issue guidelines for the “safe and effective enforcement of immigration laws around the country, specifically at or near courthouses,” the DOJ alleges.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan made headline after she was indicted for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade federal officers shortly after he appeared in her courtroom in connection to a domestic abuse case. Security footage allegedly shows Dugan confronting plainclothes ICE officers in a courthouse hallway before they are escorted out. She allegedly let Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz sneak out through a jury door after allegedly telling the ICE agents that they needed to speak with the court’s chief judge before detaining him.
In Massachusetts, a district court judge is accused of helping an undocumented immigrant sneak out of her courtroom to elude federal immigration officers waiting to arrest him at her courthouse. Newton County District Court Judge Shelley Joseph allegedly assisted Jose Medina-Perez, an undocumented immigrant who had been deported twice from the United States, in evading agents.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Joseph was charged in 2019 with conspiracy to obstruct justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of a federal proceeding, and perjury.
The Justice Department has now sued three states and multiple cities over “interference with immigration enforcement,” according to a DOJ press release, including Colorado and Illinois.
“These laws pose intolerable obstacles to federal immigration enforcement and directly regulate and discriminate against the federal government, in contravention of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” the New York complaint says. “Through these enactments, New York obstructs federal law enforcement and facilitates the evasion of federal law by dangerous criminals, notwithstanding federal agents’ statutory mandate to detain and remove illegal aliens.”
