[Hot Air] Everyone is on the lookout for new trends ever since President Trump came to town. This is particularly true of those who are opposed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws and prefer the term "undocumented immigrant" to illegal alien. It’s precisely that group which seems to be the most upset over a new pattern they are noticing in the world of law enforcement. It seems that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have been "lurking" around courthouses and arresting suspected illegal immigrants when they show up there with their attorneys. (Los Angeles Times)[I]n the past few weeks, attorneys and prosecutors in California, Arizona, Texas and Colorado have all reported teams of ICE agents -- some in uniform, some not -- sweeping into courtrooms or lurking outside court complexes, waiting to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally.
ICE officials have defended the tactic, saying they make arrests in courthouses only when all other options have been exhausted. But activists, attorneys and prosecutors fear ICE’s increased presence in courthouses could deter other immigrants without legal status from appearing in court to testify as witnesses or answer warrants, which ultimately could endanger prosecutions.
Pardon me if I immediately respond by playing a slow, mournful tune on the world’s smallest violin after hearing that. Despite whatever previous practices were in place, those are simply agency guidelines. There is absolutely nothing illegal about having an ICE agent show up at a courthouse where they know or suspect that an illegal alien will be and take them into custody if no better opportunity presents itself. Particularly in the case of "clients" who are at the courthouse because they are facing charges, the agents probably wouldn’t have to be hanging around there if local law enforcement was actually doing their job and cooperating with them. That’s the point being made by Virginia Kice, an ICE agency spokeswoman.