US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been in regular attendance at the Chesterfield County Courthouse since last Friday, with plainclothes agents attending traffic court, arraignments and preliminary hearings.
Lawyers inside the courtroom say once those proceedings are completed, ICE agents — some of them wearing masks — appear and whisk people out of the court building.
Katherine Poindexter, a criminal defense attorney in Chesterfield, spoke Wednesday on the courthouse steps, where some demonstrators had gathered to decry ICE’s presence.
“They are crawling the halls and essentially detaining people without regard to whether they are charged or not charged, convicted or not convicted, or if they’re here as a victim or witness to a crime,” she said.
Poindexter said ICE’s presence is making immigrants afraid to come to court for regular proceedings: “It’s had a chilling effect on the court system being able to function.”
VPM News observed Jose Allende Galindo, a Mexican national, being driven off the courthouse grounds Wednesday in an unmarked white van after making a 1 p.m. appearance related to an expired vehicle registration sticker, according to his attorney, Mackenzie Clements.
Clements said that agents presented her with a warrant for Galindo’s arrest linked to a removal order.
“My client was coming to show the court that he had complied with registering his vehicle and was secreted away,” she told VPM News. “ICE is now present in the courthouse, it seems, for every docket every day — including pretrial court proceedings where you’re there to determine your lawyer situation.”
She echoed the concern that ICE is going to keep people with uncertain documentation from participating in the legal system: “Why would you go to the courthouse?”
According to the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office, ICE detained six people on Friday, six on Monday and two on Tuesday. It isn’t initially clear how many people ICE took in Wednesday, but estimates from lawyers watching the proceedings ranged from four to 10 people. ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
