‘Damned if you do, damned if you don't': Activists guard Phoenix immigration court

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Protesters gather at the immigration court in downtown Phoenix to guard against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting people showing up for their scheduled court hearings. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
Immigrant rights activists kept watch over the Phoenix Immigration Court on Thursday, withstanding 100 degree weather and threats of arrests, ready to protest against a new round of ICE detainments.
Federal officials didn't make an appearance, granting migrants who showed up to attend mandatory immigration hearings a reprieve. But organizers of pro-immigrant advocacy groups say they plan to continue gathering at the court, as there is no guarantee there won't be future raids.
More than a dozen people so far have been arrested in the past two days by ICE agents. Officers reportedly detained people in elevators, hallways and on their way back to their cars, just minutes after federal prosecutors asked judges to dismiss their immigration cases.
That's key, because closing a person's immigration case allows the federal government to refile it under the current legal landscape. And President Donald Trump's administration has vastly changed that landscape, gutting asylum protections and eliminating humanitarian parole programs created by former President Joe Biden for migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.
Dismissing immigration cases also leaves the people at the center of those cases vulnerable to expedited removal, a policy that fast-tracks deportations and circumvents the right to a court hearing.
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Trump laid the groundwork for this week's arrests shortly after taking office by issuing executive orders that reinstated the ability of immigration officials to carry out enforcement actions near previously protected areas, including courts and expanded the scope of expedited removal to apply to anyone living anywhere in the U.S. without authorization if they are unable to prove their continuous presence in the country for more than two years.
The arrests earlier this week appeared to involve people who have been in the country for less than two years, according to the Arizona Republic.
Similar arrests at immigration courts in other cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles and Miami, have also happened this week. Legal experts and immigration advocates say it's a bid to boost deportations and fulfill Trump's campaign promise to oversee the highest number of removals in history.
No court, no hearing: Trump revives fast-track deportations, expands reach nationwide
Ricardo Reyes, a lead organizer for Common Defense, an anti-Trump veterans group that frequently speaks out against anti-immigrant policies, called the targeting of people attending scheduled hearings 'cruel' and said it's an easy way to identify multiple people eligible for deportation.
'They're going for the easiest targets and the softest targets of people trying to do it the right way, because you have their information — you have their address, you have their names,' he said.
Reyes added that forcing people to choose between attending their scheduled immigration hearing and risking detention, or skipping the hearing and facing an order of removal as a result, amounts to violating their due process rights, which everyone in the country is entitled to, regardless of their citizenship status.
'This is entrapment, because you're damned if you do, damned if you don't,' he said. 'If you show up for your court hearing, they dismiss your case and then you get picked up. If you don't show up, then you automatically get marked for removal.'
And while Thursday appeared to be quiet, Reyes noted that, in the previous days, ICE agents sometimes left the court only to return for the next batch of immigration hearings. The court's hearings are divided into a morning and an afternoon session.
Reyes vowed to continue returning to stand vigil beside the courthouse until he was confident the raids would not return, though he didn't say when that might be.
'I will be here until we think they're no longer interested in coming back,' he said.
As the heat climbed into the triple digits, Monica Sandschafer pushed the crowd away from the sidewalk in front of the courthouse toward the one facing Van Buren Street, instructing them to stay on city property to avoid problems. During previous demonstrations, the property manager contacted the local police, according to organizers, and she threatened to do so again on Thursday.
Advocates huddled under the trees and turned their posters, emblazoned with phrases like 'Bring Kilmar home' and 'No bans, raids, cages,' towards the oncoming traffic, but kept watch over the courthouse and its adjoining parking lot. At the building's entrance, two volunteers waited for people to arrive for their hearings and handed out small red cards with information — in English on one side and Spanish on the other — about their rights when interacting with ICE.
Sandschafer, the Arizona State Director for Latino voting rights organization Mi Familia Vota, pointed out that people attending immigration hearings, many of them who are seeking asylum, are following the legal process that Republicans and immigration hawks have long advocated for.
'Opponents of immigration like to say, 'Well, just do it the right way and then you won't have any problems,'' she said. 'These are literally folks doing it exactly the right way that has been laid out for them and then getting tricked into being detained. It's a bait and switch.'
These are literally folks doing it exactly the right way that has been laid out for them and then getting tricked into being detained. It's a bait and switch.
– Monica Sandschafer, Arizona State Director for Mi Familia Vota
Members of Mi Familia Vota have responded by volunteering to accompany people to their court hearings, checking to make sure their case hasn't been closed already — which would mean they don't need to go at all — figuring out how much can be completed online and collecting family contact information in the event of a detainment. The group has also launched 'Know Your Rights' training sessions and citizenship application workshops.
For lawful permanent residents, who have also been detained under the current administration's hostile deportation agenda, the best protection is finalizing their citizenship status, Sandschafer said.
Sandschafer, too, said she expects to keep adding a visit to the courthouse to her daily calendar.
'We'll be continuing to be a presence as long as ICE is executing these unconstitutional, anti-due process actions,' she said.
State and city leaders have lashed out at the move to ensnare people who pose no danger.
People with scheduled immigration hearings have already been found by a judge to be willing to comply with the rules of their parole without needing to be put in detention. Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats and openly critical of Trump's anti-immigrant policies, lambasted the new strategy on social media.
'My office is in contact with DHS to gather more information,' Hobbs wrote, in a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter. 'We need to prioritize efforts to deport criminals and secure the border. Indiscriminately rounding up people following the rules won't make us safer.'
'ICE should be focused on apprehending dangerous criminals, not targeting families outside civil immigration hearings,' echoed Mayes. 'Families and children attempting to navigate the immigration system in good faith deserve dignity and due process, not intimidation or fear.'
Phoenix Councilwoman Anna Hernandez, who previously served in the state Senate and has a fiercely pro-immigrant stance, called the arrests 'heartbreaking.' She noted that the hearings on Thursday weren't a series of dismissal motions, like earlier in the week, and posited that the attention from elected officials and immigrant advocates may have deterred a repeat of the ICE detainments.
But while elected officials have voiced their concerns with the actions carried out by ICE officials, it's unclear what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Earlier this year, immigrant advocates and city officials alike debated the possibility of passing a citywide ordinance limiting collaboration with federal immigration officials, but nothing came of it. Hernandez said the City of Phoenix likely has little power to stop ICE from arresting people simply attending their immigration hearings.
'Because it is an immigration situation, I think that really is out of our hands, unfortunately,' she said. 'But what we can do, as city electeds, is make sure that we're here to support our people however we can.'
Hernandez did say she would support a move to rescind the Maricopa County Jail's involvement in the 287(g) program, though none is currently in the works. The federal agreement allows some officers in the jail enforcement model to help ICE identify people in custody who may be eligible for deportation. Amid the Trump administration's increasingly hostile moves against immigrants, critics have called for scaling back the relationships between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration officials.
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