The Cook County Public Defender’s office is calling on Chief Judge Timothy Evans to put a stop to warrantless immigration arrests in and around courthouses.
Since the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz,” U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement officers have significantly increased their presence at Cook County courthouses.
The ramped up enforcement has had a chilling effect on courthouse operations, with people forced to weigh the risk of skipping court over potential deportation, according to the public defender’s office.
“I have had numerous conversations with clients who are presented with a difficult decision of either missing court and receiving an arrest warrant or coming to court and risk being arrested by ICE, transported to a detention center outside of the state of Illinois and then ultimately deported, which means death for many asylum seekers,” Cruz Rodriguez, an assistant public defender with the office’s immigration division, said at a press conference Wednesday.
The public defender’s office, along with a coalition of legal aid groups, filed a petition Wednesday asking Evans to bar federal law enforcement officers from making civil arrests at county courthouses without a court order.
ICE officials on Wednesday said the ability to make arrests at courthouses is “common sense.”
“It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “It is also safer for our officers and the community.”
At least three people have been detained by ICE over the last month while attempting to go to court hearings, according to the petition. It also said ICE agents have been spotted outside county courthouses on several other occasions.
Immigrant clients are now deterred from coming to court for an appearance or essential resources, according to the public defender’s office.
“ICE’s ability to arrest people at and around courthouses threatens the functioning of our court systems and deprives our clients of due process,” Rodriguez said Wednesday.
ICE’s increased presence has had a particularly detrimental effect on survivors of domestic violence, according to advocates.
Last month, a woman was arrested by ICE while entering the Domestic Violence Courthouse, at 555 W. Harrison St, where Wednesday’s press conference was held. About two weeks later, federal agents parked outside the courthouse in an unmarked vehicle with “an assault-style rifle,” prompting calls to 911 and widespread fear among those inside, according to the public defender’s office.
Carla Gutierrez, of Mujeres Latinas en Accion, said ICE’s targeting of the domestic violence courthouse, where many come to seek legal protection, is “deeply alarming.”
“These are places where survivors come not to break the law, but to follow it, to protect their families, their children, to seek orders of protection and a sense of safety,” Gutierrez said Wednesday. “When immigration enforcement invades those spaces, it pushes survivors back into the shadows. It forces them not to seek the critical, and at times life-saving resources, protections and justice that they so urgently need, and the result is devastating.”
The petition calls for Evans to sign a general order enforcing a common law privilege that has historically barred civil arrests in and around courthouses, without a warrant or judge’s order.
Questions remain about the court’s ability to actually enforce an order if ICE agents were to enter the courthouse and make an arrest anyway.
Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center, one of the organizations petitioning, acknowledged that enforcement would depend on the type of arrest.
Van Brunt said what this order really aims to do is “mitigate harm” and provide guidelines for those working at the courthouses.
“It is about instructing and providing guidance to the people who work in Cook County courthouses that they are there to protect litigants,” Van Brunt said Wednesday. “They are not to let in ICE. They are not to facilitate ICE arrests.”
ICE officials seemed certain such an order could not be enforced.
“We aren’t some medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law,” McLaughlin said Wednesday. “Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.”
As of Wednesday morning, the public defender’s office had not received a response from Evans, whose 24-year run as chief judge is up at the end of November. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The public defender’s office would also welcome the state Supreme Court to establish similar guidance for courthouses across Illinois, as the issue is not unique to Cook County.
During Trump’s first term, New York passed a statewide law barring ICE from making arrests in state, city and other municipal courthouses. The Trump administration sued the state over the law this summer.