When ICE Is Waiting at Immigration Court, What Can Advocates Do?

“Those instances where people are going in for their usual check-in, and not being released — having someone there accompanying you means that we can immediately request legal blockistance,” Gonzalez said. “We can make sure your family knows what happened to you … and hopefully prevent expedited deportations.”

Alison Maciejewski Cortez is one of those volunteers. After 13 years outside the United States, she moved to Sacramento last September and almost immediately began volunteering for NorCal Resist.

“Coming back this time, I knew the political climate was going to be scary for my community,” said Maciejewski Cortez, who has experience working with Latin American, immigrant and refugee organizations. “I wanted to make sure that I had a way to give back.”

As an American citizen who is fluent in several languages, including English, Spanish and Thai, Maciejewski Cortez particularly works with people going through the asylum-seeking process. Primed by NorCal Resist on what the organization calls “accompaniment training,” Maciejewski Cortez helps people with the administrative side of court hearings, including translating, going through paperwork and taking notes.

“I just want to make sure that they have the best chance at being heard,” Maciejewski Cortez said. “I have perfect English and I still find some of these forms and terminology to be confusing and complicated.”

In addition to supporting court logistics, accompaniment volunteers like Maciejewski Cortez also help provide a sense of protection and safety for the asylum seeker.

“I’ve been in a lot of immigration offices around the world, and it’s really scary to go alone,” she said. “I can’t imagine how somebody, who has recently arrived and has lived through a traumatic life experience, [is] trying to navigate this system,” she said.

‘I don’t know what would have happened to him’

The idea of accompaniment work grew from faith communities in the 1980s, Gonzalez said. Volunteers would help new immigrants and refugees find apartments and enroll their kids into schools — supporting every step of settling into a new country.

Now, accompaniment to immigration court — and to check-ins with ICE — has become the primary need, Gonzalez said. And in recent months, volunteers have found themselves with an increasingly important extra role: keeping watch on applicants in the event that ICE detains a person.

At that point, the volunteer then immediately alerts the person’s legal support team or a local Rapid Response Network, a separate group of dedicated volunteers and attorneys who respond to reports of possible ICE activity around the clock.

“Hopefully, the fact that we have folks there with their eyes on what’s going on will provide deterrence to ICE from taking these actions,” Gonzalez said.

This is something Maciejewski Cortez witnessed. In mid-June, while accompanying an applicant to immigration court in Sacramento, she saw ICE agents walking down the hall with handcuffs “hanging off their side.” After turning to follow them, she watched them apprehend a man whose case had been dismissed.

Maciejewski Cortez immediately tracked down the man’s details and alerted the local Rapid Response network. A pro bono lawyer with NorCal Resist promptly arrived at the courthouse and met with the detainee “and they both were out of the courthouse in two hours,” she said.

“If I hadn’t seen who it was or caught the name of the man in the court, I don’t know what would have happened to him,” she said. “I don’t know how long he would have been in their custody.”

Access and alternatives

Some advocates are now reporting they’re having trouble even accessing courtrooms to accompany immigrants.

Immigration court hearings are “generally open to the public but can be closed or held with limited attendance at any time,” according to a representative of the federal Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. Scenarios where proceedings can be closed include cases involving protective orders or domestic abuse.

Gonzalez said that the court in Sacramento has had “inconsistent rules regarding our access.” Maciejewski Cortez said she’d experienced being denied access to the Sacramento immigration courtroom in late June during the start of a hearing after court staff told her the courtroom would be full. Despite this, she said she saw empty seats still available.