ICE Agents Are Camped Outside Immigration Courts to Make Arrests 

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have begun waiting outside immigration courts in federal buildings across the country to arrest people immediately after judges dismiss their immigration cases. The ICE tactic appears to be a shift aimed at increasing the pace of deportations.

At New York’s Varick Immigration Court, ICE agents on Wednesday began checking the documents of everyone who left, according to a source present who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional retaliation. The court is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. 

“They are indeed checking individuals off lists and attempting to detain them once they leave court,” they said. 

According to the source, ICE detained at least two people after they left the courtroom. 

“I’ve always told clients that immigration court is the one place you can expect ICE not to be, because everybody wants you to go to immigration court and if you don’t go it’s an automatic deportation,” said Matt Cameron, an immigration attorney in Boston. “I am very concerned that people might hear this and decide not to go to court because they think it’s unsafe. But if you don’t go to court, it’s automatic deportation, and that gives ICE an excuse to come for you a lot faster.”

“They’re basically circumventing due process.”

In a statement to The Intercept, ICE said it issued guidance in January permitting its officers to conduct operations near courthouses “discreetly” and that doing so was in the interest of public safety.

“Arrests of illegal aliens in courthouses is safer for law enforcement and the general public because these criminals have gone through security and been verified as unarmed,” ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson said in a statement to The Intercept. “ICE will make thoughtful decisions in each case and do whatever is most likely to keep the American people safe.”

Camille Mackler — founder and executive director of Immigrant Arc, a group of legal advocates working on immigration issues — said she’d heard that ICE was conducting targeted operations in several jurisdictions across New York and other states, including Maryland, Arizona, California, Texas, and Illinois. Cameron, the Boston attorney, said he’d heard reports of more than 50 immigration officers — half undercover and half in full tactical gear — swarm a court in California.

Reports began circulating on social media on Tuesday that ICE had begun efforts to get cases dismissed that had been pending for less than two years so that the agency could immediately apprehend immigrants and force them into an expedited removal process — effectively side-stepping the typical immigration court process.

“They’re moving to end those cases so they can move forward with a more aggressive form of deportation without the requirement to see a judge or request asylum,” Mackler said. “They’re basically circumventing due process.”

ICE’s operation is creating an unnecessary climate of fear, said Deborah Lee, the head attorney at the immigration law unit of the Legal Aid Society, a New York public defense group.

“It is deeply disturbing to see ICE agents taking people into custody or staking out immigration courts in New York and other states over the past two days,” Lee said. “These actions create a climate of fear and intimidation, targeting individuals seeking due process and safety. Immigration courts should be spaces of justice — not traps. This aggressive enforcement undermines trust in our legal system and endangers the rights and dignity of vulnerable communities.”

“Immigration courts should be spaces of justice — not traps.”

On Tuesday, immigration advocates said they saw ICE agents at immigration courts in Los Angeles detaining people after their cases were dismissed. 

“There were two ICE officers inside the courtrooms who would notify the officers sitting in the hallway when a case was dismissed,” Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of legal advocacy group Immigrant Defenders Law Center, wrote on BlueSky.

“This is something I’ve been concerned about for a while, that they’re going to find a way to circumvent removal proceedings,” Cameron said. “This appears to be one strategy for doing that.”

“Something I’ve been seeing already play out in the last couple of weeks that they started — they’re trying to dismiss cases, including cases that aren’t eligible for expedited removal, and they’re trying to put them in expedited removal,” he said. “That’s my real concern, that whatever due process is left will be killed when they start circumventing removal proceedings.”

A day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security issued a guidance allowing ICE officers to conduct arrests at “protected” areas, including courthouses. This reversed a Biden-era directive that limited arrests at sensitive locations. According to the guidance, officers must first receive approval from ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor to conduct arrests at courthouses. The guidance also instructs ICE to arrest people “discreetly” at non-public areas of the courts and to use the “non-public entrances and exits.”

 

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FBI arrested a judge in Wisconsin last month for “obstructing” an immigration arrest operation. According to the FBI’s criminal complaint, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan allegedly told an immigrant to use the “jury door” to exit the courtroom after agents working with ICE arrived to arrest him.

Update: May 21, 2025, 3:57 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to include comments from Matt Cameron, an immigration attorney in Boston, and Deborah Lee of the public defense group Legal Aid Society.

The post ICE Agents Are Camped Outside Immigration Courts to Make Arrests  appeared first on The Intercept.