California courts must report immigration arrests under new rule

California’s superior courts will begin collecting data on immigration arrests that take place at their facilities under a new rule adopted Friday by the state Judicial Council, the courts’ governing body.

The new rule, which goes into effect May 1, requires courthouses to report any arrests for civil offenses such as immigration violations to the Judicial Council.

California already prohibits such arrests unless officers have a warrant from a judge or the arrest is for contempt of court.

But immigration enforcement officers have conducted operations at state courthouses, including a daylong operation in Oroville last summer that resulted in several arrests, the Judicial Council said in a news release on Friday.

Such actions could lead crime victims and key witnesses to miss court dates because they fear apprehension, the council said.

“When people avoid court facilities out of fear, the court system cannot serve them and cannot function as intended,” Sharif Elmallah, court executive officer for the Butte Superior Court said. “That affects the victim seeking protection under the law, witnesses whose testimony may be critical for parties to present their cases, and litigants who depend on their participation.”

Under the new rule, courts will be required to report the date, time and location of each arrest as well as the name of the agency conducting the arrest. The report must include information on whether the person was taken into custody and whether the officers presented a warrant for the individual’s arrest. It must also show whether the officers were in uniform and whether they presented government-issued identification.

The purpose of the new rule is to allow the state’s judiciary to gather data on such arrests to better understand their impact and frequency, the agency said.

“The Judicial Council can and should understand where, and how, civil arrest activity occurs,” said Napa County Superior Court Judge Scott R. L. Young, who chairs two committees of the council.

Arrests of undocumented individuals at state or superior courthouses, where they might be required to appear for hearings in criminal or civil cases, are not the same as those conducted at immigration courts, and raise different issues.

That’s because immigration courts are not part of the state judiciary, but are instead administrative courts under the control of the U.S. Department of Justice. There, immigrants may be attending hearings on their asylum or green card applications, not participating in criminal or civil court proceedings.

If they miss those hearings due to fear, they can immediately be ordered deported.

Arrests at immigration courts were frequent in Sacramento and other cities for much of last year. But in recent months, the federal government significantly reduced those apprehensions, instead focusing on arrests at immigrants’ homes or places of business.

Earlier this month, a Patterson man who was living in the U.S. without authorization was shot seven times by ICE officers who followed him from his home and pulled him over on his way to work.

Legal cases related to immigration detentions have swamped federal courts in California’s Central Valley, with nearly 1,000 new petitions filed each month so far this year.