Lawyers at the Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights urged the Massachusetts Trial Court in a letter to strengthen its policy and procedures concerning interactions with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, noting that the state has become a target for federal immigration enforcement that has "increasingly been accompanied by highly aggressive tactics and blatant racial profiling."
The LCR lawyers said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been detaining people and arresting people inside courthouses, in courthouse parking lots, and on sidewalks and walkways leading to courthouses. They said that a few months ago, ICE arrested someone outside a courthouse while his criminal trial was still going on.
"There is no equal justice — nor equal access to justice — when ICE is halting court proceedings to make arrests, or lying in wait, masked and unidentified, outside courthouse doors," the lawyers said.
The Massachusetts Trial Court is the Massachusetts Judicial Branch's largest component.
Tuesday's letter, penned by attorneys Brooke Simone and Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, said that while other states have taken steps to better protect immigrants in court proceedings, Massachusetts was "falling short."
The lawyers said that the Connecticut Judicial Branch had last month banned state and federal law enforcement officers from wearing face masks or making immigration-related arrests inside the state's courthouses without a valid judicial warrant.
Other states with protections include New Jersey, California, Colorado, Washington and New York, they noted.
"The fact that our courthouses are currently places of fear and terror for many community members does not align with the commonwealth's values and principles," the lawyers said.
The lawyers specifically urge the trial court to strengthen its policies by expanding access to remote court proceedings for individuals afraid of in-person appearances, set "strict limits" on ICE officers entering state courthouses, barring law enforcement personnel from using face masks in the courthouses, barring warrantless civil immigration arrests both in and around courthouses, and barring ICE officers from entering courthouse lockups to take custody of individuals released from state custody.
Taking such steps is "well within the power" of the Massachusetts Trial Court, the lawyers wrote.
Quoting the First Circuit in a ruling from 2020, the lawyers said that the appeals court proclaimed that the "operation of a functioning judiciary is unmistakably a fundamental exercise of state sovereignty."
"And under our federalist system of government, immigration authorities may not operate indiscriminately to impinge on this core state function," the lawyers wrote.
Massachusetts courts have in the past "led the way" in setting clear boundaries for federal immigration officials, according to the lawyers.
They said that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had held in a 2017 landmark decision in Lunn v. Commonwealth
that the federal government can't make state courts comply with immigration detainers and that state court officers don't have the authority to arrest or hold people at the request of federal immigration authorities pursuant to a civil immigration detainer.The lawyers said that the trial court, under the same legal principles, is "well within its rights to place strict limits on ICE activity in and around its courthouses."
But its DHS policy is "weak where it should be bold, and vague where it should be specific," they said.
Meanwhile, ICE arrests are threatening the state's immigrant communities and negatively impacting access to justice, the lawyers said.
They said that domestic violence victims, for example, are becoming unwilling to seek restraining orders. They said that tenants whose rights are being violated by landlords are also afraid to seek help from the courts. Parents have also been skipping child custody hearings, they said.
"Justice should not depend on immigration status," the attorneys wrote. "Equal justice for all means all."
Espinoza-Madrigal, LCR's executive director, said in a statement on Tuesday that Massachusetts is "falling behind in safeguarding immigrant communities."
"Equal justice means everyone — regardless of immigration status — can safely access our courts," Espinoza-Madrigal said. "Our constitution requires us to act and we call on the Trial Court to adopt these overdue protections immediately."
--Additional reporting by Tom Lotshaw and Chris Villani. Editing by Bruce Goldman.