Under Pressure In Public And Private, ICE Folds In Immigration Standoff

Photo by Eugene Driscoll

Shaundrece Beckford talks to a reporter outside Superior Court in Derby.

DERBY — A 23-year-old Ansonia man eluded a team of immigration agents at Derby court Thursday by staying inside the public defender’s office in the building for about seven hours.

Five agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stood around, leaned on walls, stared at their phones, declined comment to reporters — but would not enter the locked office to get Domar Shearer, who is from Jamaica and overstayed a VISA, according to a relative.

Meanwhile, Shaundrece Beckford, who said she was Shearer’s wife, sat on a bench in the corner of a small lobby with a relative, wondering what she was supposed to do. She said ICE agents wouldn’t explain why they were there or show her any paperwork connected to her husband. Beckford was frantic by the end of the day, afraid Shearer would be disappearing into federal custody.

“I am a U.S. citizen and they won’t tell my anything,” she said.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ICE agents wait in a hallway in Superior Court in Derby. Their suspect is inside a locked office.

A steady stream of activists arrived at the court house starting at about 11 a.m. to watch what ICE was doing.

The ICE agents were not wearing any obvious gear identifying themselves as federal agents, and they declined to identify themselves as such to a reporter.

The activists pointed out the ICE agents to the press because the two sides often run into each other during situations such as the one in Derby court.

Representatives from the New Haven-based Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) alleged the activity by ICE agents in a state court violated new rules under Connecticut’s TRUST Act, which protects due process rights for illegal/undocumented immigrants and restricts cooperation with ICE, according to a story in The CT Mirror.

The TRUST Act was made into law in 2013 and modified earlier this year. The activists questioned whether the ICE agents were aware of the modifications.

Among the changes, according to a press release issued in May by Gov. Ned Lamont:

  • The law limits law enforcement sharing with ICE
  • The law requires law enforcement to inform an individual when ICE has requested their detention; and
  • Prohibits law enforcement from detaining someone solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer unless the person is guilty of the most serious felonies, is on the terrorist watch list, or a judicial warrant has been issued.

Shearer was in court Thursday because Ansonia police arrested him in September after a dispute at his residence that caused two police visits in a single night. Beckford said her husband got into an argument with her friend and they tussled over a cell phone. Shearer had a few drinks in him during the incident, she said, which was the first time he had been arrested.

As a result of the September fracas, he had several misdemeanor charges pending, including breach of peace, assault and threatening from the two police visits.

Photo by Eugene Driscoll

Five ICE agents walk away after being asked to leave the Derby court house.

Shaundrece Beckford said Thursday was her husband’s second court appearance and that he was expected to pay a fine and apply for something like accelerated rehabilitation, a common form of probation that wipes your record clean if you stay out of trouble for a given amount of time.

Beckford said her husband called her shortly after arriving at court Thursday morning and said a public defender told him ICE was looking for him.

“So they pulled him inside the public defender’s office because they said (ICE) had no access beyond a certain point,” Beckford said. ​“They hid him in there.”

Beckford said her husband entered the U.S. on a visa a few years ago but not return to his country. She said he works as a server in a restaurant in Bridgeport.

“He works from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” she said. ​“We were just going to start building our marriage and everything to try to situate everything with him so he could stay permanently,” Beckford said.

ICE public affairs in Boston would not comment on the situation.

There were as many as 20 or so activists at the court house as the day wore on. The ICE agents and the people who opposed their presence ignored each other, save for one moment early in the day when an activist warned an ICE agent not to touch him while in a cramped hallway.

The audio file below captures some of that brief dispute. At the beginning of the clip an ICE agent declines comment without being asked to comment. A judicial marshal’s voice is heard at the end of the clip.

A state trooper then positioned himself in the hallway immediately afterward.

As Beckford, ICE agents, reporters, and activists waited around for hours, Connecticut officials were contacting ICE.

Elizabeth Benton, a spokesperson for state Attorney General William Tong, said Tong reached out to ICE ​“to express his concern for public safety and to ask ICE to avoid escalating this situation.”

As the building closed at 5 p.m., everyone waited to see if Shearer would emerge from the public defender’s office and be grabbed by ICE.

However, an agent left the building by a side door about 5 p.m., made a ​“wrap it up” gesture in the air — and the agents got into a white SUV and drove away.

Watch the raw video below:

Apparently the ICE agents had been asked to leave by Chief Court Administrator Patrick Carroll, who is in charge of the administrative operations of the state’s court system. The news came out in the form of a statement from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal:

“Courthouses should be regarded as places to go where people can seek justice or be held accountable for violations of law,” Blumenthal said. ​“Maintaining the rule of law and orderly conduct of justice is paramount. That is why I supported the Chief Court Administrator in this situation.”

Blumenthal also contacted ICE and ​“strongly” urged them to listen to Carroll, according to the statement.

Shearer finally left the building — and a caravan of activists, fearing he would be immediately picked up if he returned to his residence in Ansonia, took him to New Haven.

CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THEY LEFT THE VALLEY.

ACLU Executive Director David McGuire issued the following statement: ““Today, activists with Unidad Latina en AcciĂłn were able to protect a Connecticut man from being seized by ICE at a Connecticut courthouse, and they never should have had to do so. ICE should not be in Connecticut’s courthouses, and it should not have been in the Derby courthouse today. When ICE uses courthouses as hunting grounds for deportation, they are undermining public safety and justice, and they are hurting our communities. Today’s is the most recent example of ICE jeopardizing safety and justice by attempting to deport people in and around Connecticut courthouses. It is long past time for the Connecticut Judicial Branch, including judicial marshals, to start standing up for safety and justice by adopting the policies, procedures, and rules necessary to keep ICE out of Connecticut courthouses, and the legislature must do its part to ensure the same.”

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