ICE agents routinely make arrests at Middlesex County Courthouse

Steph Solis | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Immigrant advocates stake out Middlesex County courthouse after ICE arrests Members of Deportation and Immigration Response Equipo (DIRE) started monitoring the Middlesex County Courthouse for signs of immigration authorities.

Middlesex County’s efforts to limit cooperation with federal immigration officials haven't stopped enforcement agents from arresting immigrants showing up at court in New Brunswick.

Immigration agents entered the courthouse 10 times between September and April, according to visitor logs recently provided to The Record and NorthJersey.com. Emilio Dabul, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark, said agents made arrests outside the courthouse during those visits. He would not say how many arrests were made, only that they were immigrants facing a variety of criminal charges.

“ICE Newark has continued to pursue its mission of protecting communities, despite the uncooperative demeanor of Middlesex County when it comes to honoring ICE detainers,” Dabul said in a statement.

Since 2017, Middlesex County has prohibited local law enforcement from honoring federal detainer orders from ICE unless an inmate has been convicted of a serious felony, such as sexual assault or murder.

The local officials have also instructed sheriff's officers to only accept judicial arrest warrants, not Homeland Security detainer or arrest orders lacking judicial approval.

Middlesex County Sheriff Mildred Scott did not return calls or emails seeking comment.

Middlesex officials adopted its policy in June 2017, after ICE conducted a series of courthouse arrests, prompting an outcry from immigrant rights activists and attorneys in New Brunswick.

New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner sent a letter to DHS calling for a prohibition against courthouse arrests, saying the actions erode public trust in the judicial system and discourage immigrants — defendants, victims and witnesses alike — from coming to court.

The concerns prompted the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts to review court staff procedures for courthouse arrests of undocumented immigrants, according to a June 26 memorandum.

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In the internal memorandum, Judge Glenn Grant, acting administrative director of the courts, reprimanded court staff who contacted ICE over the immigration status of a defendant who was being offered pre-trial intervention. A court official told The Record the incident occurred in Middlesex County Courthouse.

"When your clients are worried about ICE, I think they're less inclined to be honest with you. They're less inclined to be trusting of you. They're less inclined to want to cooperate in general with the criminal justice system," says Lauren Bayer, a public defender who has had two clients detained by ICE at the courthouse. "I think that goes for the defendants, and it also goes for crime victims and witnesses."

None of the 37 people arrested during a recent five-day sweep by ICE Newark was detained at the courthouse, said Dabul, the ICE spokesman. Nearly half were inmates who had been released from the Middlesex County Jail, according to a news release.

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More than three-quarters of those arrested had a prior criminal conviction or face charges, ranging from illegally entering the country, a federal misdemeanor, to aggravated assault, according to ICE.

The county's decision limiting cooperation with ICE continues to draw the ire of federal officials. The Justice Department has threatened to withhold certain federal funds from local law enforcement agencies that limit cooperation with ICE — a response several federal courts have rejected as unlawful. The department has appealed those rulings.

"Middlesex County, which aspires to be a sanctuary county by protecting criminal aliens, in the process assists criminals in undermining federal law, and creates a dangerous environment in the community,'' Ruben Perez, acting field office director of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations in Newark, said in a statement following the recent arrests. "It also overburdens local law enforcement."

ICE issued a directive in January formalizing its practice of arresting immigrants at courthouses.

The directive states that ICE officers should act discreetly to minimize their impact on court proceedings, leaving a suspect's family and friends alone unless they pose a public safety risk or interfere with ICE.

In Middlesex County, ICE agents sign into the courthouse to review criminal records and observe "targeted individuals," Dabul said. Arrests are made outside the courthouse — often after the detainee has already passed through courthouse security screenings.

Public defender Lauren Bayer said an undocumented client, a co-defendant in a drug case, was detained in November as he was leaving a pre-trial hearing at the courthouse.

The Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale of the Reformed Church of Highland Park said the courthouse visitor logs confirm his suspicions that ICE has a constant presence at the courthouse.

Volunteers with the Deportation and Immigration Response Equipo (DIRE), which Kaper-Dale leads, have staked out the courthouse while court is in session in response to rumors that ICE was making arrests near the courthouse.

Rudy Logan, a DIRE volunteer, said the visitor logs "key us into something going on here with ICE coming in to possibly take people away."

A 'chilling' effect

Before entering the courthouse, criminal defense attorneys in New Brunswick often ask each other if anyone has spotted ICE agents, Bayer said.

They can’t tell immigrant defendants not to show up, she added, but at least they can be mentally prepared for the possibility that an arrest could disrupt their case.

"Their status is never supposed to be an issue, but it seems to be coming up more and more," Bayer said. "As far as (a criminal charge) being the start of immigration proceedings, it's really troubling."

Dabul, the ICE spokesman, says targeted enforcement at courthouses is nothing new. But the practice has come under increased scrutiny as immigration arrests and deportations increase in New Jersey.

Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased 30 percent between fiscal years 2016 and 2017. Deportations increased at a similar rate between Jan. 20, 2017 and Sept. 30, 2017. That's up 31 percent over the same time period a year earlier.

One of those arrested last year was Miguel Xicotencatl-Toxqui, an undocumented immigrant who was a victim in a road rage incident.

Xicotencatl-Toxqui and his partner went to the hospital and reported the incident, but he was later charged with endangering the welfare of a child after police learned the couple left his partner's three children home alone.

Xicotencatl-Toxqui pleaded guilty to a lesser, non-criminal violation on March 31, 2017, and the judge said he was free to go. Nonetheless, sheriff's officers arrested him inside the courtroom, saying ICE had a warrant for his arrest. He was turned over to enforcement agents.

"I don't think anyone expected ICE to come in," Bayer said.

Local activists helped Xicotencatl-Toxqui get an immigration lawyer and he was released on bond. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

ICE Newark says that agents target individuals in courthouses for a variety of reasons. Further, an immigrant may have unrelated immigration violations or may have gone years undetected by ICE before appearing on the court calendar.

The county’s policy of denying retainers on immigrant inmates unless they’ve been convicted of a first- or second-degree crime also plays a role, Dabul said.

“ICE’s enforcement activities in these same courthouses are wholly consistent with longstanding law enforcement practices nationwide. 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,” he said.

Yet many public officials locally have sided with activists.

Chief Justice Rabner, in his letter to Homeland Security, requested that ICE add courthouses to its list of “sensitive locations” that agents are advised to avoid.

“When individuals fear that they will be arrested for a civil immigration violation if they set foot in a courthouse, serious consequences are likely to follow," he wrote.

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Since Middlesex County adopted its policy limiting cooperation with ICE, arrests like Xicotencatl-Toxqui's have been rare.

"I think it put a real chill on ICE," said Ellen Whitt, a member of the Immigrant Rights Committee of the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War who campaigned for the policy. "They realized they weren't going to get that level of cooperation from the sheriff's department without a judicial order."

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That doesn’t stop ICE from arresting defendants before they’ve resolved their criminal cases, Whitt added.

”They're never convicted or shown to be innocent,” she said. “It just circumvents the whole court process."

The courthouse arrests of immigrants have prompted judiciary officials to review their own practices.

In his June 26 memorandum, Judge Grant, the acting administrative director of the courts, said it was “inappropriate for court staff” to call ICE to ask about someone’s immigration status. He cited a 2007 state judiciary directive that states only the prosecutor can contact ICE to check a defendant's status.

Grant noted in the memorandum that the judiciary had launched a working group to study the arrests of undocumented immigrants at courthouses. An AOC spokesman declined to comment on the memorandum, saying it was an internal document.

Bayer said the AOC's memorandum was a step in the right direction.

"It doesn't solve everything, but at least you can have steps to make a piece of the process safer for them (immigrant defendants)," she said. "I think it does make the integrity of the whole system better."

Steph Solis: @stephmsolis; 732-403-0074; ssolis@gannett.com