‘People are terrified’: ICE agents stake out California courthouses to detain undocumented immigrants
His papers fell to the ground. His girlfriend fell to her knees and broke down in tears. Five federal immigration agents surrounded 25-year-old Richard Urdaneta Pulido after he walked out of immigration court in downtown Los Angeles last week and arrested him.
His girlfriend, who is not being named to protect her safety, yelled “Richard!” as agents took Pulido down a set of elevators not open to the public.
Last week, federal immigration agents across the country began arresting people, whose cases had just been dismissed, after they walked out of immigration courtrooms.
“People are terrified… The Trump administration intentionally or unintentionally, I suspect it’s intentionally, is creating a climate of fear among people who are trying to follow the rules, and that’s just disgusting and outrageous,” said Niels Frenzen, co-director with USC’s immigration clinic.
On Friday, May 23, ICE agents detained at least four people after they walked out of immigration courtrooms in downtown Los Angeles, including Pulido, according to Lindsay Toczylowski, president, CEO and co-founder of Immigrant Defenders, a California law firm that provides legal services to immigrant communities.
A reporter for the Southern California News Group, who was at the courthouse, witnessed federal agents detaining one person.
The effect of the Trump administration’s approach to targeted immigration enforcement also was felt this week in Orange County. According to immigration advocates, more than 10 people, including children, were detained by plainclothes ICE agents outside the immigration courthouse in Santa Ana this week.
“Secretary (Kristi) Noem is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law,” said a DHS spokesperson in a statement.
Pulido traveled from Venezuela and entered the United States legally through the CBP One app, his girlfriend said, months before President Donald Trump shut it down. Almost immediately after Trump took office for his second term, the earlier version of the app stopped allowing migrants to apply for asylum. Tens of thousands of appointments were canceled.
It was later converted to a self-deportation app renamed CBP Home.
Pulido’s girlfriend said he fled death threats in Venezuela. She also said his brother was killed in front of him and their mother. He intended to apply for asylum but didn’t understand what was happening in court when Judge Peter Kim moved to dismiss his case.
His girlfriend said he was afraid to go to court on Friday, but that he wanted to go through the legal immigration process.
“We never thought they were going to arrest him,” his girlfriend said.
Department of Homeland Security lawyer Carolyn Marie Thompkins said the government was looking to dismiss his case in order to pursue Pulido’s expedited removal. Pulido tried to push back and told Kim that he believes he “can contribute a lot to this country” and that he’s looking for a better life for himself and his children. Pulido was not represented by a lawyer.
Kim responded by saying those are “not grounds to oppose the dismissal.” And his case was dismissed.
As Pulido was walking out of the courtroom, two federal agents in plainclothes followed him into the hallway. They, along with the three other agents in plainclothes waiting outside, surrounded Pulido and arrested him.
Pulido later was transferred to an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington.
“It’s not normal that ICE agents would be in the courtroom about to arrest people,” said Toczylowski. She said in her 15 years of practicing in immigration court, she’s never seen such tactics.
She said this will make people afraid to come to court. “We are punishing the people who are following the rules, who are doing what the government asked them to do.”
“[Immigration judges] have a duty to help unrepresented respondents to understand what is happening in those proceedings. And in this case, I would say the immigration judge did not do that. They did not explain it and it’s why ICE is targeting people who are unrepresented, because people who are represented would know all of their appellate rights.”
Frenzen also said the immigration courtroom arrests are unprecedented, and that it’s a new move by the Trump administration to aid in its plan for mass deportations.
“Clearly there is communication going on between the ICE lawyers and the ICE agents who are going to court,” he said.
Frenzen said DHS is now going after people using the expedited removal process, “which basically eliminates the rights that a person would have if they were in front of an immigration judge because [DHS] can go after more people that way and deport them more quickly.” It can be used against people unauthorized to be in the U.S. who have been in the country for less than two years.
Since the creation of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, expedited removal has never been used on such a systematic scale, according to Frenzen. Expedited removal has typically been used by federal immigration agents along the border.
The expanded use of expedited removal is being challenged in court.
Sandra De Anda, an organizer with the Orange County Rapid Response Network, said she witnessed a father get taken away from his wife and 4-year-old daughter on Wednesday afternoon at the Santa Ana immigration courthouse. She said ICE officers behaved “aggressively” towards the family, including the child.
The OCRRN organization, which has been active since Trump’s first presidency in 2017, has also not seen tactics like this before, said organizers.
De Anda said the four to five individuals detained Wednesday were asylum seekers whose cases were dismissed by a judge and didn’t have an attorney.
A man and a woman, identified by volunteers as ICE agents, were spotted leaving the courthouse parking lot in a blue SUV with no license plate on Wednesday. Both individuals were dressed in plainclothes and wore black face masks without any visible identification.
When asked to provide a comment, the woman said, “No, thank you,” and the pair drove off.
OCRRN said plainclothes ICE agents were handing off detainees on-site at the courthouse to detention officers for transport. The individuals wore tactical gear with a patch that read ‘Detention G4S Officer Private Security’.G4S is a private security company owned by Allied Universal.
Duties of their detention officers include include “armed transportation services, escorting detainees to and from transport vehicles, and monitoring detainees in your custody,” according to the GS4 website.
At the courthouse, a 33-year-old woman from Venezuela appeared distressed as she spoke to an OCRRN organizer. Earlier in the afternoon, she said plainclothes ICE agents grabbed her partner and took him into custody. She said in Spanish that she thinks agents didn’t take her because she was with her 7-month-old daughter. The two had been living in the U.S. for a little less than two years and are residents of Hemet.
The couple did not have an attorney
“It is unlawful under the Immigration and Nationality Act for ICE officers to make arrests of individuals unless those ICE officers believe there is a likelihood that that person is likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained,” Frenzen said.
“You have people who are going to court, pursuant to court orders, you have people whose addresses are registered with the court. That is overwhelming evidence that people are not trying to flee, they are following the rules.”