Safeguarding the Integrity of Our Courts: The Impact of ICE Courthouse Operations in New York State

By The Immigrant Defense Project

The ICE Out of Courts Coalition (the Coalition) is comprised of over 100 organizations and entities across New York State. As community-based organizations, unions, civil legal services providers, public defenders, family defenders, anti-violence advocates, law schools, and civil rights and liberties groups serving New Yorkers of all ages, races, and immigration statuses, we have been alarmed and appalled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) increasing dependence on our State’s court system as its preferred venue for surveilling and detaining immigrant New Yorkers. For over two years, the Coalition has gathered qualitative and quantitative data from affected stakeholders across issue areas and roles within the justice system. Following meetings with the Chief Judge and the Chief Administrative Judge, the Coalition has spent significant energy compiling the data collected in this report. The data collected in this report demonstrates the full breadth of the negative impact ICE courthouse operations have had on the administration of justice, as well as equal access to justice, in New York State. This report demonstrates just how widespread this problem is — affecting not just New York City but the whole state, affecting not just criminal but problem-solving and civil courts as well. Information presented here attests to how systemic this issue has become in the fair and efficient administration of justice, and how ICE courthouse operations have had an outsized effect on the most vulnerable New York State residents, including victims and survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, single mothers, those eligible for problem=solving courts and youth.

New York: Immigrant Defense Project, 2019. 88p.