BALTIMORE — Federal agents detained a possibly undocumented immigrant inside the Baltimore City Circuit Court last week, marking the first immigration arrest in the city’s highest court since President Donald Trump renewed and magnified his deportation efforts earlier this year.
The June 24 arrest has launched a criminal investigation against a corrections employee who allegedly notified the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (ICE) about a prescheduled hearing inside the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse, according to the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities said in notifying ICE that the employee “may have gone outside of their official duties” with privileged information.
Sheriff Sam Cogen condemned ICE’s actions to reporters as being out of bounds for the downtown courthouse, while Circuit Court Clerk Xavier A. Conaway said protecting the court’s purpose of providing fair and safe services is essential.
“Our courts must be spaces of dignity, not fear,” Conaway wrote in a statement. “If our courthouses become places people avoid, then we’ve lost more than public trust — we’ve weakened the very foundation of equal justice in Baltimore City.”
It was still unclear on Tuesday who the person detained was or what happened to them. Officials with ICE’s Baltimore Field Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The detainment was the latest in a growing pattern nationwide where courthouses — places in which people are often ordered or scheduled to appear — are used to intercept asylum-seekers and immigrants.
The result, according to Annapolis-based attorney Mandeep Chaabra, is a growing sense of fear and a waning interest in participating in the criminal justice process.
“They’d rather have a state warrant against them than take the risk of ICE showing up and getting deported,” Chaabra told The Baltimore Sun.
In January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded a Biden-era directive limiting immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses, as well as other “protected areas” like schools, places of worship and medical facilities.
At the time, ICE’s then-acting director Caleb Vitello wrote in a memo that courthouse actions are safer because everyone entering one is screened for weapons by security. They “often” become necessary, Vitello said, when local “jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with ICE.”
At least one law enforcement agency in 40 states shares a partnership with ICE “to identify and remove criminal aliens,” more than 700 in total, according to its website.
As of Tuesday, eight from Maryland are part of ICE’s 287(g) program. All of them are county sheriff’s offices. Of those included, Allegany, Cecil, Frederick, Harford, St. Mary’s and Washington counties also provide security to their county’s circuit court.
According to Vitello’s memo, ICE procedure allows its agents to conduct business in or near courthouses “when they have credible information” that a “targeted alien” will be there.
Assistant Sheriff Nicholas Blendy said Tuesday that two ICE agents arrived at the Mitchell Courthouse’s main entrance on June 24 without notice, claiming to have an appointment. The Sheriff’s Office requires agencies within the court to notify them in advance whenever a member of an outside law enforcement group is coming, making ICE’s sudden arrival a “breach of policy,” Blendy said.
Deputies verified the two ICE officers’ identities before taking them upstairs to speak with a Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services employee, he said. MPSCS helps facilitate the court’s pretrial services, where citizens generally learn their court dates in pending cases. Blendy said it appears the person eventually detained had “lawful business with pretrial.”
When deputies arrived at pretrial services on the fourth floor, they ensured the MPSCS employee who made the appointment with ICE came to the door, Blendy said, without naming the employee.
The deputies were not a part of the meeting that followed, Blendy told The Sun, but saw it take place. When it was over, they escorted the ICE agents and the person in their custody out of the courthouse.
“It is detrimental to the administration of justice for ICE to conduct any enforcement action in the courthouse buildings,” Blendy said, explaining the office’s position was not political.
In a statement, DPSCS spokesperson Keith Martucci said the department is conducting an internal investigation into the ICE encounter in Baltimore’s circuit court. The employee involved is on paid administrative leave, he said.
“DPSCS did not authorize or coordinate this action,” Martucci wrote, adding they are committed to keeping Marylanders “safe while holding offenders accountable.”
In an interview, Chaabra said state courts are at a loss for what to do when ICE, a federal agency, steps in and detains someone at the center of a criminal or civil case.
It used to be that immigration arrests would happen after a state matter was resolved, the attorney said. Now, they take place at any point.
If a defendant or plaintiff is detained by ICE, the courts will go through the procedure of postponing hearings and trial dates, Chaabra said, but even the most sympathetic judges cannot “stop the wheels of justice from turning.” Because a state warrant for someone failing to appear in court holds no power over ICE custody, Chaabra said, the lower cases are more or less made moot.
“It’s causing a big disruption in the criminal justice system under the circumstances,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Maryland Judiciary said court officials have heard “anecdotally” about ICE arrests in its facilities across the state, though they did not know how many.
According to Chaabra, the fear of being detained stretches well beyond someone facing criminal charges.
In February, when a mass shooting trial was taking place in Annapolis, an alleged hate crime against a gunman’s Hispanic neighbors, Chaabra said he received several calls from witnesses wondering whether it was safe to go to court. Some asked if there was any way they could avoid testifying.
“Depriving any person of the opportunity to sue someone, testify on a matter, or respond to allegations erodes the rule of law and harms all residents,” Cogen, Baltimore’s sheriff, said in a statement.
Chaabra told The Sun that one of his clients in a felony assault case was detained by ICE and taken to a facility in Nebraska.
The attorney said the only reason he knew where his client went was because the man’s girlfriend was “diligent” about finding him. In many cases, he said it’s impossible to know where someone detained by ICE has been taken.
“They vanish,” Chaabra said.
______
(Baltimore Sun reporter Glynis Kazanjian contributed to this article.)
______