AG Ferguson sues Trump administration over courthouse immigration arrests
Washington state has sued the Trump administration over its practice of arresting people at courthouses for immigration violations, saying it interferes with the state’s authority to run its judicial system.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle. It says when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents patrol courthouse hallways and parking lots, they deter crime victims and witnesses from testifying and interfere with criminal prosecutions.
A similar lawsuit in Massachusetts has resulted in a preliminary court order blocking immigration agents from making civil arrests at courthouses there. The Trump administration has appealed that order.
The Thurston County Prosecutor’s office was considering filing its own lawsuit earlier this year. When Prosecutor Jon Tunheim reached out to the Attorney General’s Office and learned it was doing its own investigation, they started collaborating, Tunheim said Tuesday.
Thurston County’s main role, Tunheim told The Olympian, was to provide information to the Attorney General’s Office regarding how Thurston was affected by an arrest plainclothes ICE agents made June 20 outside the county courthouse complex.
“To put a case like this together, you’ve got to be able to demonstrate to the court what the impact has been to the immigrant community and the chilling effect it has,” Tunheim said.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights said in a report in October that it had documented 51 reported immigration arrests at courthouses in the state since 2016. The researchers said they believe many more arrests have happened, but that it has been difficult to document them because ICE refused to release the information.
The state Supreme Court also has asked federal immigration authorities to stop making courthouse arrests.
Tunheim told The Olympian he’s “sincerely and extremely disappointed with the federal administration right now for not hearing us and not giving any regard to what it is that we’re trying to do — and that is to give people a safe place to go and access justice at a courthouse.”
Several Thurston County officials submitted declarations in support of the state’s lawsuit, including Tunheim, County Manager Ramiro Chavez, Commissioner Tye Menser, and Presiding District Court Judge Brett Buckley. Tunheim said advocacy groups also submitted declarations.
“I’m excited because I think the legal reasoning of the Massachusetts court — that I’m imagining the lawsuit was based on — is sound,” Commissioner Menser said after the suit was filed Tuesday. “I’ve been advocating for Thurston County to take whatever protective steps seem viable to protect citizens in our community that need to access justice in the courts. This seemed to me to be the only really effective and direct way to do that.”
Patrick O’Connor, Director of Thurston County Public Defense, said attorneys in his office reached out to find clients who had been adversely affected by “ICE presence” and the June arrest.
Thurston County Public Defense then submitted a declaration that included an example that’s now part of the state’s complaint: a “noncitizen fighting for his parental rights” in Thurston County who now “must balance the need to protect his parental rights with the risk of being arrested” following the June arrest.
“We’re supportive of the Attorney General’s position,” O’Connor told The Olympian. “We believe that everyone should have access to our justice system, including the clients that we represent.”
These declarations are “really critical” both to putting a case like this together, Tunheim said, and to persuading a judge that a preliminary injunction is appropriate.
At a press conference Tuesday morning, Tunheim stood beside Attorney General Ferguson and King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg to announce the lawsuit. Thurston County’s continuing involvement, Tunheim said, depends on how the lawsuit proceeds.
“Anything they need from us, we’ll be ready to help them, assist them in any way we can,” he said.
This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 4:07 PM.
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