Immigration Law
ABA Commission on Immigration launches new program to respond to ICE’s courthouse arrests
June 11, 2025, 11:33 am CDT
The Immigration Court Observation and Awareness Project aims to identify trends and systemic issues by asking volunteers to observe short preliminary hearings and record their observations. The commission plans to use this data to better support noncitizens’ access to counsel and due process rights. (Image from Shutterstock)
Several of the ABA Immigration Justice Project’s attorneys were representing clients at the San Diego Immigration Court on May 22 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began arresting people after they appeared for their hearings.
They had never seen so many ICE officers in the courthouse hallways, says Lauren Cusitello, the director of the Immigration Justice Projectwho received reports from attorneys that day. They quickly discovered ICE intended to detain specific people after the government’s lawyers moved to dismiss their cases.
Many people had counsel, but many didn’t, Cusitello says. The Immigration Justice Project’s attorneys, who volunteered to represent some of those without counsel, objected to the dismissal of cases or requested more time to file arguments opposing their dismissal. Whether these requests were granted varied from judge to judge.
“For the most part, the people who were arrested were people whose cases had been dismissed by the immigration judge, often over their own objections or the objections of counsel,” Cusitello says. “Our understanding is that these dismissals were for the purpose of taking the person out of immigration judge proceedings and putting them into expedited removal proceedings.”
Under the expedited removal process, ICE can remove certain noncitizens from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge. Cusitello explains that undocumented immigrants are entitled to seek asylum if they express fear of returning to their home country, which could be why those who were detained were in immigration court in the first place.
Noncitizens in expedited removal proceedings are kept in detention, where they have less access to counsel, Cusitello adds. She says that ICE’s courthouse arrests—which are occurring nationwide as part of mass deportation efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration—could deprive people of their right to appeal a judge’s order to dismiss their cases.
“You might wonder, why would someone want to appeal a dismissal?” Cusitello says. “The answer is, people who come here seeking protection want that claim adjudicated. And ideally, if they are going to be in immigration proceedings, they want those proceedings to be before a judge, where they have clear statutory and constitutional rights and where there is more access to counsel.”
How to help
The ABA Commission on Immigration is launching a new program to respond to the moment.
The Immigration Court Observation and Awareness Project aims to identify trends and systemic issues by asking volunteers to observe short preliminary hearings and record their observations. The commission plans to use this data to better support noncitizens’ access to counsel and due process rights.
“For a while now, we have been contemplating standing up a court observation project to see how different policies are actually being implemented on the ground, but also to bear witness to what’s happening,” says Adonia Simpson, the deputy director for policy and pro bono at the Commission on Immigration. “It’s become particularly important in the last couple of weeks with the detentions in the courtroom.”
Attorneys have reported other recent experiences that necessitate a court watch program, Simpson adds. This includes campaigns to incentivize noncitizens to self-deport.
“We want to provide timely and reliable information to the public and the immigration bar to minimize the proliferation of rumors and inaccurate information,” says Meredith Linsky, the director of the Commission on Immigration.
She adds that volunteers are not expected to intervene in cases in any way.
“We are not asking people to take an active role or to appear as a friend of the court or to speak on behalf of any of the respondents,” Linsky says. “That is not our intention.”
So far, the Immigration Court Observation and Awareness Project has recruited volunteers to observe proceedings in San Diego; Washington, D.C.; and Harlingen, Texas, the location of the ABA South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project. Volunteers from Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Arizona have expressed interest in the program, which Simpson says is open to anyone nationwide.
Volunteers can access an online training course about how to engage in court observation. The commission says volunteers do not need any previous experience with immigration law. They also do not need to be lawyers or legal professionals.
To register or for more information, visit the Commission on Immigration’s website.
ABA members also can financially support the Commission on Immigration, which has lost federal funding for several programs in recent months. Donations can be made through this website.
Communities are uniting
ICE officers have continued to appear in the hallways of the San Diego Immigration Court.
“It makes everyone nervous,” Cusitello says. “It makes the environment more tense.”
The Department of Homeland Security defended ICE’s courthouse arrests in a statement published by the Hill on Sunday. According to DHS, individuals are subject to expedited removal if they entered the country illegally within the past two years.
Former President Joe Biden “ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge,” the statement says. “ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.”
Volunteers began meeting noncitizens outside of the courthouse in San Diego to inform them of the risk of being arrested after their hearings, Cusitello says. They tell noncitizens they can call the court and ask to instead appear by video conference or telephone.
But Cusitello hasn’t heard of any judges granting motions to avoid courthouse arrests. Before May 22, she also hadn’t heard of ICE arresting noncitizens amid immigration proceedings at the San Diego Immigration Court and moving them into expedited removal.
“It is being said a lot that this is intentional and designed to evoke fear in our community, both the community of lawyers and of course the community of people seeking access to the immigration courts,” says Cusitello, who notes that three of the Immigration Justice Project’s clients have been arrested.
“But I also think it’s remarkable, the extent to which our community has united in the face of all of this,” she adds. “The community is bearing witness, and our clients are continuing to show up for court even after being advised of the dangers that might await them there.”
See also:
Behind the scenes as the ABA reacts to DOJ’s order to stop providing legal support to immigrants
ABA responds to federal cuts to legal services for unaccompanied children
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