Another ICE Courthouse Arrest Interrupted

A federal immigration agent began to arrest a New Haven woman inside a state courthouse Thursday. New Haven activists interrupted the arrest — and captured him on camera.

The incident occurred inside the state courthouse in Milford.

Activists from New Haven’s Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) swooped into action in a hallway when federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents approached a New Haven woman named Ana Lucero.

Watch in the above video as the arrest is interrupted — and activists confront the agents.

Lucero — who was born in Mexico and is in the U.S. legally, according to ULA — was in the courthouse to accompany a friend. She did not have a case herself.

The agents stopped her and asked her name. They asked to see ID.

At first Lucero declined to show any ID.

“You don’t have to tell them anything,” ULA’s John Lugo informed her in Spanish.

An agent started putting her hands behind her back to arrest her.

“She has an ID. She has an ID,” Lugo said to the agent.

The woman showed an ID card. The agents backed off. It turned out she was believed to look like the person ICE was seeking — a different person.

Lucero demanded an apology. She didn’t get one.

“You are a bunch of racists,” Lugo then told the agents in English as they walked away.

That stopped one of the agents, who turned to Lugo.

“I’m just as Hispanic as you are,” he told Lugo.

“Really?” Lugo responded.

“Stop with the big words,” the agent said, then resumed leaving.

An ICE spokesperson issued a statement later in the day: ““While we can confirm that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations did engage in enforcement activities in the vicinity of the Milford, CT courthouse today, as a practice we do not publicly discuss details of specific law enforcement activities. As with other federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, US Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) can and may engage in enforcement activity in courthouses; ICE ​’s enforcement activities in courthouses are wholly consistent with longstanding law enforcement practices. Courthouse arrests are often necessitated by the unwillingness of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in the transfer of custody of aliens from their prisons and jails.”

Click here and here to read about a similar confrontation on Oct. 31, when ULA prevented agents (including the agent who began arresting Ana Lucero on Thursday) from arresting an undocumented immigrant inside a Derby courthouse.

ULA has been pressing the state to ban ICE from state courthouses.

“It’s not fair she goes to the courthouse and she gets interrogated,” John Lugo said afterwards. ​“She is legal in this country. She became a victim” of ICE’s tactics.

An ICE official offered this explanation for how and why the agency sends agents into courthouses:

“Current ICE policy directs agency personnel to avoid conducting enforcement activities at sensitive locations unless they have prior approval from an appropriate supervisory official or in the event of exigent circumstances. The locations specified in the guidance include schools, places of worship, and hospitals. Under the policy, courthouses are not considered sensitive locations.

“When criminal custody transfers occur inside the secure confines of a jail or prison, it’s far safer for everyone involved, including our officers and the person who’s being arrested.

“Now that many law enforcement agencies no longer honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat. Additionally, because courthouse visitors are typically screened upon entry to search for weapons and other contraband, the safety risks for the arresting officers and for the arrestee are substantially diminished.
In such instances where deportation officers seek to conduct an arrest at a courthouse, every effort is made to take the person into custody in a secure area, out of public view, but this is not always possible.”

“Still, You Are Afraid”

Thursday afternoon, Lucero and the Unidad activists reconvened at the People’s Center on Howe Street in New Haven.

Lucero said the experience in the courthouse left her rattled.

“I know my rights. I know that I am legal,” she said, recalling the incident. ​“But still you are afraid.”

Lucero, who is 34, said she immigrated from Mexico when she was 13, first living in California. A DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient, and now helps people with their taxes, both with the local tax-aid agency Tax America Services and now with her own Lucero Multi Services.

On Thursday, she said, she had come to court to support a friend. She was looking at the posted list of scheduled cases when the two tall ICE agents approached her. She said they came up very close to her and asked for her name. She said she replied by asking for the agent’s name, and he responded by asking for her ID.

When she asked for his name again, he flashed his ICE badge at her. She said she asked him: ​“Why are you asking this question? Because I look Spanish?”

The officer took her right hand and placed it behind her back, handcuffing it. With her left hand, she took out her ID and showed it to the officer.

“It’s not that I don’t want to show you my ID,” Lucero said of the officer. ​“It’s the way that you approached me.”

She said it seemed like the ICE agents were trying to intimidate her by coming so close and refusing to say their names or why they were questioning her.

ULA has established a direct-response team to react to ICE presence in courthouses. In the process, it has made no friends at ICE.

After the Oct. 31 standoff that left ICE agents empty-handed, the agency issued this statement about ULA: ​“It is ironic that activists and even elected officials want to see policies in place to keep ICE out of courthouses, while caring little for laws enacted by Congress to keep criminal aliens out of our country. Despite attempts to prevent ICE officers from doing their jobs, ICE will continue to carry out its mission to uphold public safety and enforce immigration law, and consider carefully whether to refer those who obstruct our lawful enforcement efforts for criminal prosecution.”