By Russell Blair
The Hartford Courant
WASHINGTON — Responding to reports of federal immigration agents arresting undocumented immigrants at courthouses and elsewhere, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and 10 other Democrats introduced legislation to block immigration enforcement at so-called “sensitive locations.”
“Immigration enforcement actions at schools, courthouses, churches, hospitals and other sensitive locations create a climate of fear that affects the entire community, " Blumenthal said in a written statement.
Blumenthal’s office listed a variety of news reports including accounts of a father who was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while dropping his children off at school in Los Angeles, ICE agents waiting outside a church’s homeless shelter in Virginia and a mother taken into custody at a hospital in Texas.
Immigration agents should generally avoid enforcement actions at schools and churches, according to ICE policies, but the Democrats’ bill would codify those policies into law.
But there is no restriction on ICE agents arresting individuals at courthouses. In Danbury last month, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador was arrested on his scheduled court date.
“I am getting reports from different public defender offices around the state, since ICE seems more emboldened to detain clients who are known to be coming to court or in scheduled programs that have been court-ordered,” Susan Storey, the state’s chief public defender, told the News-Times of Danbury. “People are just disappearing and it’s very concerning.”
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