The word “shame” echoed through the 24-story atrium of the Hennepin Government Center in downtown Minneapolis Tuesday afternoon as up to over 100 sit-in protestors gathered to decry Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in county buildings, including courthouses and jails.
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, incidents of ICE detention in and around the Hennepin County Government Center have gone from zero over years prior during the Biden administration to multiple within the first month of Trump’s second term. Just at the county building, attorneys say they have witnessed over 10 arrests. Public defenders attending the protest spoke under the condition of anonymity out of fear ICE could reverse-identify their clients if they were named.
Speakers called on the county and the bench to prohibit ICE presence in county buildings. They said it is disrupting court proceedings and harming individuals, including those who are presumed innocent or serving as witnesses.
They also called for the creation of a new policy. “The Minnesota Judicial Branch does not have an official policy regarding interaction with any federal law enforcement partners, including ICE,” spokesperson for the State Court Administrator’s Office Kyle Christopherson confirmed in an email to MinnPost.
Hennepin County’s current policy states that public spaces are “open to all persons, and all persons in a county facility should be treated with respect and dignity, including residents (regardless of immigration status) and government agents. If a federal agent seeks to take custody of an individual in a public space, county employees should not interfere or assist.”
On Jan. 21, ICE issued interim guidance on “enforcement actions in or near protected areas.” This guidance states that “ICE officers or agents may conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location, and where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction in which the civil immigration enforcement action will take place.”
County and local leaders have authority and discretion around court business and proceedings, and “it’s their responsibility” to take measures to ensure court cases can move forward without people being separated from their families due to ICE intervention, said a public defender speaking under condition of anonymity.
“The administrators of this building decide what is public and what’s private all the time. They make those calls all the time,” the attorney said. “They get to decide how they run court business… they’re making the decision to allow their own process to be disrupted by a separate authority.”
Chief Public Defender Mike Berger said he did not attend the sit-in.
“Our office is sort of necessarily and inherently apolitical in the fact that we simply represent clients that the court appoints us, whoever that may be,” he said. “That said, obviously inherent in our job, we have certain policies that we’re opposed to and certain policies that benefit our clients.”
Particularly, Berger emphasized that the U.S. system affords due process rights to anyone charged with a crime, regardless of immigration status or citizenship.
“The arrests that we’ve seen happen most recently are negating the presumption of innocence and flying in the face of due process that our court system has created — that our court system constitutionally created and our court system has constitutionally entitled people to,” Berger said.
Berger said the courts want people to be comfortable coming to them and having their cases resolved, even if it ultimately still results in ICE detention.
“What we’re seeing with the way these arrests are happening is these arrests are happening before disposition of a case,” Berger said. “Whatever the spectrum of the results, they’re interrupting it before the result happens and the reason that’s important is two things. One, we want to ensure that the full set of rights of law in the criminal justice system is seen through, regardless of the person’s status. And secondly, from a client perspective, from our individual clients — particularly those that may have an immigration status in question — they know that resolution of a case is a more favorable way to enter immigration court than an unresolved case.”
When asked if he would advocate for a policy that would limit ICE access to the court house, Berger declined to comment.
While he did not know the exact number, Berger said he could confirm multiple ICE detentions have happened in and around Hennepin County courts and jails since the Trump inauguration. He personally witnessed one of these detentions and noted that, up until this past month, there had been no arrests like this since he was appointed to his role in June 2023.
The interim guidance by ICE says civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses should, “to the extent practicable,” take place in non-public areas of the courthouse, be conducted in collaboration with court security staff and use the court building’s non-public entrances and exits. The guidance also says ICE officers and agents should “generally avoid enforcement actions in or near courthouses, or areas within courthouses that are wholly dedicated to non-criminal proceedings.”
But the case Berger witnessed did happen in a public area. Arrests have also not only included people with felony charges, Berger said.
“The one I witnessed with my own two eyes was someone that was appointed to one of our lawyers, and that was a misdemeanor case,” Berger said.
In that case, Berger said, ICE officers were inside security in the waiting area at the Public Safety Center downtown where court arraignments take place.
“Our client was walking and he was escorted (by ICE) to the side by the jail check in, and was arrested and then walked out the front door to ICE detention,” Berger said.
There are no protections against something like this in place currently, Berger said.
“The position from our offices is that if it’s our client, we’d ask to see the grounds for the arrest, be it the arrest warrant or or whatever the grounds ICE has to have,” he said. “This we would do with anybody you represent who’s being taken into custody.”
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