We must resist courthouse arrests and create sanctuary spaces

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Neighbors and friends, I am writing to suggest two perhaps controversial but urgently needed steps demanded of us in the movement for immigrant and refugee rights.  

First, we must join and build the movement to stop the Trump administration’s new tactic of courthouse arrests, which have turned our immigration courts from places of limited due process into traps for supposedly deportable residents.

And second, by exercising our rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, let’s establish many local sanctuary spaces. These are spaces that welcome fugitives regardless of citizenship status and that deny both entrance and answers to agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a valid judicial warrant. 

End courthouse arrests

Starting in the past few weeks, a new perversion of immigration policy – courthouse arrests – has appeared at our Northern California immigration courts and simultaneously across the country. At the moment, most of those targeted are asylum-seekers. These refugees have already convinced border agents of the “credible fear” of persecution and violence that qualifies them to apply for asylum, and so have lived legally with their families among us while waiting to present their story to a judge. 

But now the White House has decreed new policies that effectively revoke their right to an asylum hearing. And so “hunter teams” lurk in the courthouse hallways, changing the courts into traps for easy apprehension of “deportables.” 

Many of us in our local network of support for immigrants and refugees have grown personally close to these new neighbors. Now we share their fear. 

What can they do when summoned? Will they be able to tell their story to a judge? Or will they instead be taken, imprisoned and deported to an unknown destination?

Timely help from a capable attorney and community support may still be the best hope for those facing this dilemma. But many, even most who are at risk lack those resources. 

Instead, already, many people are avoiding check-ins and court hearings altogether, triggering mandatory deportation orders. 

The upshot is that thousands of unfortunates have been abducted at courthouses amid the wreckage of our immigration system. More may be taken. Fewer will report when summoned. More will receive deportation orders. And thousands of eligible families – including more than 600 pending cases in our county alone – will be unable to exercise their rights due to this perversion of court services.  

At some future point, we must restore the rights now denied. And right now, we must reinforce immigration legal services. But those services will remain overwhelmed. And we cannot rely on judges or on legislators to restore due process in immigration courts, nor on the executive to comply if they do.  

And so a movement has begun. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s courthouse detention by ICE is only the most visible example of a nationwide grassroots movement now quickly forming against courthouse arrests. 

One good way to build the movement against courthouse arrests here in our communities might tap into our own rich tradition of protests. For over 50 years, again and again, thousands of us have marched side by side for farmworker and immigrant justice.  

So imagine with me … a march or a caravan against courthouse arrests, from the south to the north, converging for a picket line, a prayer service and perhaps an exorcism at the federal immigration court in San Francisco.  

Establish safe spaces 

And second: Here in every local community, let’s establish two, three, many Fourth and Fifth Amendment sanctuary spaces. 

Because the same rights that are spelled out on those little red cards and described in Know Your Rights events belong to all of us. We make a profound mistake when we assume that only the most vulnerable should exercise them.  

How to establish a Fourth and Fifth Amendment sanctuary space? It is simple and perfectly legal, using our constitutional rights.  

Identify a space that you control or own and admit people only by invitation or permission. Post a sign that labels it a private space. In that space, welcome and care for people without regard to their immigration status, leaving that an entirely private matter. Make a decision, entirely consistent with your Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, to neither open doors nor answer questions from ICE agents who don’t have a valid judicial warrant.  

ICE agents doing sweeps are highly unlikely to have a valid judicial warrant (signed by a judge and either targeting a named person or a search warrant for that address). Post a sign to that effect, and be prepared to back it up.

In spaces not normally open to the public, including kitchens and workspaces of churches, community centers or public agencies, people can declare and provide sanctuary up to this point without legal jeopardy. While churches, schools and clinics no longer enjoy a special status, privacy rights still do apply to all such spaces that are not open to the public. This ACLU advisory on harboring fugitives is written for faith communities; precisely the same principles apply, however, to our homes and other facilities.  

These rights may not be honored even if we assert them. But if we fail to do so, then we surely lose them. 

And how we might respond in the unlikely event that ICE agents do come with a judicial warrant?  

At that point, the person standing at the door may decide to step aside. Or if conscience demands, they may choose nonviolent resistance and so risk arrest. Many of us might choose that course.  

But the more of us who declare our homes, our places of worship, our schools and other institutions to be Fourth and Fifth Amendment sanctuaries, the less likely any one of us will be targeted.  

As an example, here is a printable draft sign that asserts Fourth and Fifth Amendment sanctuary protections. The text was composed for private areas of local churches, but it can be easily changed for posting at the entrance to your home or any private space. 

Such signs will only proliferate if we become sanctuary communities in a deeper and more powerful way.

Paul Johnston is a sociologist whose work among immigrants and refugees on the Central Coast spans from farmworker organizing over 50 years ago to asylum-seeker and other refugee accompaniment and sanctuary support today.