Did ICE detain people from courthouses?
Executive summary
Yes — federal immigration officers have been detaining people inside and immediately outside courthouses across multiple states in recent months, a practice documented in local reporting and tracked by advocacy groups, and one that has prompted state pushback and legal friction with federal policy [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What happened on the ground: recent, concrete arrests
Reporting shows multiple specific incidents: ICE agents arrested four people at the Douglas County (Neb.) courthouse before their scheduled hearings, preventing court appearance and sending at least one person to federal custody [1] [5]; ICE arrested an individual inside the New Haven GA Courthouse after a nearby crash, which state court officials confirmed and which followed Connecticut’s recent expansion of courthouse protections [2]; and video and reporting document an arrest outside Clark County (Wash.) that interrupted a jury trial and involved masked ICE officers handcuffing a man on the courthouse sidewalk [3].
2. Policy context: a federal volte-face and local variance
Those incidents did not occur in a vacuum: after President Trump’s second-term inauguration, ICE issued directives restoring discretion to arrest in and around courthouses, rolling back the Biden administration’s restrictions on such actions and leaving local ICE field offices to decide enforcement practices [6] [7]; that shift explains why arrests have spiked in some jurisdictions while others maintain limits or resist enforcement.
3. Scale and patterns: numbers, targets, and tactics
Advocacy groups and data analyses indicate courthouse arrests are part of a wider increase in ICE activity concentrated in cooperating states: one analysis using ICE data described high overall arrest rates with geographic concentration in collaborating states, and local reporting in Massachusetts claims hundreds detained in courthouses last year and more than 50 courthouse detentions in Boston since the change in federal policy [8] [4] [9]. Accounts and organizational reports also describe a pattern of agents operating in plain clothes or masked, sometimes sitting in courtrooms or sweeping hallways to locate targets [10] [11].
4. Legal and institutional pushback: states, courts, and legislation
The uptick in courthouse arrests has provoked legislative and judicial responses: Connecticut expanded state protections after prior Stamford arrests and New York and other states have passed or sought rules limiting civil immigration arrests in courthouses without a judicial warrant or order [2] [6] [12]. Governors and state attorneys general have proposed or advanced bills to ban warrantless civil arrests on state property, and courts and state entities have litigated or adopted policies to constrain federal practices [4] [12].
5. Consequences and contested claims: due process, deterrence, and accusations
Critics say courthouse arrests undermine victims’ access to justice and deter immigrants from reporting crimes, testifying, or attending hearings; civil liberties groups frame the practice as a tool to expedite removal and strip due process protections, citing ICE efforts to funnel people into expedited removal after dismissals [10] [13] [11]. Conversely, federal proponents argue wider discretion improves enforcement certainty; reporting also shows local law enforcement distancing themselves from ICE actions and warning courts to be prepared for potentially chaotic encounters [1] [1].
6. Why the debate matters now: a collision of federal enforcement and state judicial integrity
The core of the controversy is institutional: courts historically treated courthouses as protected spaces to preserve access to justice, and ICE’s renewed courthouse arrests have set federal enforcement on a collision course with state courts and rulemaking bodies, producing lawsuits, state rules, and politically charged campaigns to “keep ICE out of courts” [14] [11] [6]. Reporting documents not only arrests but legal actors—judges, defense attorneys, governors—explicitly challenging or responding to the tactic [3] [4].
7. Bottom line — direct answer
Yes: recent, documented reporting confirms ICE has detained people from inside or directly outside courthouses in multiple states, prompting legislative and judicial resistance as well as debates over due process and public-safety impacts [1] [2] [3] [4].