Following controversy around arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement inside the Hamilton County Courthouse, Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval announced this week he is convening a task force, called “You Are Welcome Here,” to make sure immigrants feel safe there.
Officials have acknowledged that ICE at least occasionally makes arrests outside Hamilton County courtrooms, even when suspected undocumented immigrants don’t have a federal immigration detainer on file. One Common Pleas Court judge, Robert Ruehlman, has said that he calls ICE if those appearing in his courtroom need an interpreter and are there on drug charges.
ICE has the ability to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants most places — except churches, hospitals and schools — but its representatives say they don’t simply make immigration arrests in courthouses without other reasons.
But critics of the ICE arrests in courthouses say they discourages immigrants — documented and undocumented — from reporting to court, even when they’re the victims of crimes or witnesses to them. And some advocates for immigrants say they’ve seen immigrants accused of non-violent offenses picked up after they’ve been released on bond.
To that end, Pureval says the recently-created task force will look at what other courthouses are doing around the country to welcome immigrants. That will start with “know your rights” educational campaigns, but eventually could include more protections for immigrants at the courthouse. Those protections could be modeled after those passed in other states by municipalities, state legislatures or state high courts. The Oregon Supreme Court has barred civil immigration arrests at courthouses without a warrant, for example.
“We cannot have people with legitimate business in the courts too scared to come forward,” Pureval said during a news conference at the courthouse yesterday.
Joining Municipal Court Judge Janaya Trotter Bratton on the task force are representatives from Catholic Charities of Southwest Ohio, the Immigrant and Refugee Law Center, Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, the League of Latin American Citizens, Transformations CDC, Women Helping Women and other groups.
The reported ICE arrests have prompted debate about the federal agency’s role locally and what county elected officials should do to protect immigrants given Cincinnati’s self-professed “sanctuary city” status.
Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil last month released a statement disavowing any involvement in or knowledge of the arrests.
“Rumors are circulating in the community that the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office is working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency by arresting undocumented immigrants at the Hamilton County Court House,” Neil’s office tweeted. “This is completely false.”
When asked how ICE agents were able to get through courthouse security checkpoints without detection by court security, Neil’s office explained most law enforcement officers don’t go through those checkpoints.
“All law enforcement do not go through metal detection as long as they have credentials,” a spokesman for the Sheriff’s office said. “ICE agents were probably in plain clothes.”
Republicans used the opportunity to promote their candidate for sheriff, Bruce Hoffbauer, who said he was “stunned” by Neil’s statement.
“The Sheriff’s job is to uphold the law- plain and simple,” Hoffbauer wrote in a statement of his own. “This requires working in close coordination with all local and federal agencies.”
Meanwhile, Neil’s primary opponent, former Hamilton County Justice Center Director Charmaine McGuffey, has said that Neil’s claims he didn’t know about ICE’s arrests showed a lack of leadership, though she acknowledged that a sheriff can’t block law enforcement officials from entering a courthouse and arresting individuals.
This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2020.
