There was “mayhem” outside of an immigration court in Phoenix, Arizona, Tuesday, as federal agents arrested several people, including one person whose case had just been dismissed.
Immigration attorney Issac Ortega told the Arizona Mirror that several masked agents, who refused to identify themselves as officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arrested his client after his first immigration hearing.
Ortega’s client, a Venezuelan man in his mid-20s who had entered the United States last fall using the CBP One app, had been told during his hearing that ICE had agreed to close his immigration case. Shortly after, federal agents moved to detain him and others outside of the courthouse. Similar to other immigration arrests, the agents provided no identification or warrant.
Ortega told the Mirror that he believes ICE agreed to close his client’s case so that the Trump administration could more easily expedite his deportation. The sick part is, the Trump administration appears to be using compliance with the law to trap immigrants it wishes to deport.
“They always want people to enter the right way, to follow the process, but how are people supposed to do that when the rules are getting changed?” Ortega said.
Several people were swept up in the arrests Tuesday in a scene one attorney described to Ortega as “mayhem.” But that wasn’t the only city that saw mass arrests at courthouses.
Lindsay Toczylowski, the president and co-founder of Immigration Defenders, posted on X that there had been similar reports of people being detained after having their cases dismissed at immigration courtrooms across Los Angeles. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, posted that he’d heard similar stories from San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Seattle, suggesting the arrests in Phoenix were part of a larger sweep.
ICE has not posted a press release about the arrests on its website. These latest arrests represent a growing trend of immigration enforcement at courthouses, considered to be protected areas where ICE has not previously pursued arrests. New Trump administration policy has empowered immigration officers to detain individuals at these locations, as well as schools and places of worship.
ICE declined to comment on the arrests to the Mirror. The New Republic reached out to ICE for information about these arrests, but the agency had not responded by time of publication.
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