ICE checking documents outside Atlanta immigration court hearings, lawyers say

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began checking documents of people attending hearings in an Atlanta Immigration Court on Wednesday, according to eyewitness reports.

One attorney, who spoke on a condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation against their clients or themselves, reported that while attending a client’s initial hearing, ICE agents approached their client while they went to the restroom and requested to see their papers.

ICE agents reportedly stood by the court’s exit to the elevator bank and demanded identification from immigrants during the morning mass docket call, sources told the Atlanta Community Press Collective. There were no reports of confirmed arrests in Atlanta. 

Due process concerns raised by ICE’s new tactic

The move comes amidst a larger operation by ICE agents at courts across the country. According to reports, immigration enforcement agents have arrested adults and children immediately after ICE’s lawyers dismissed the deportation cases pending against them. Immigration lawyers, journalists and advocates documented similar actions at courts in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, Phoenix and San Francisco.  

Atlanta-based immigration lawyer Charles Kuck called the administration’s actions “the new ICE scam to arrest and deport folks” in a post on X (formerly called Twitter) Wednesday.

“ICE enforcement actions in court have a chilling effect across the board that diminishes due process,” said Sarah Owings, an immigration lawyer with Atlanta-based firm Owings MacNorlin who has practiced removal defense in Georgia immigration courts for nearly two decades.

That appears to be the exact purpose. 

President Donald Trump said in April, “you can’t have a trial for all of these people,” apparently confirming the administration’s intent to curtail due process and access to court for many of the more than 3 million immigrants whose cases are currently pending before the Executive Office for Immigration Review. 

Owings worried ICE’s new presence may prevent people from presenting testimony from witnesses to support their claims for relief. “Immigrants in removal proceedings have to worry that material witnesses to their claims may be detained at court. This impedes their access to the process due to the fear of immediate repercussions.” 

Trump’s expedited removal policy faces court challenges

ICE plans to put these migrants into an accelerated process called “expedited removal,” according to news reports from immigration courts in Miami and Seattle. 

Expedited removal affords fewer rights than those immigrants in the regular removal proceedings receive. By moving to dismiss the regular proceedings, ICE prevents accused noncitizens from seeking most forms of legally fighting deportation, presenting evidence to an immigration judge and appealing adverse decisions to the Board of Immigration Appeals. 

In January, the Trump administration expanded expedited removal. Under the expanded policy, expedited removals apply to noncitizens who cannot prove at least two years residency in the U.S. 

In dozens of decisions across the country, federal district judges, appeals courts and the Supreme Court have ordered pauses to Trump’s aggressive immigration actions on the ground that they violate constitutional guarantees of due process in deportation proceedings. 

A federal district court judge in Columbus issued an order Wednesday temporarily barring ICE from designating a Venezuelan immigrant at the Stewart Detention Center as an “alien enemy”, or moving him out of the Middle District of Georgia. 

In his order, Judge Clay Land, a George W. Bush appointee wrote, “Allowing constitutional rights to be dependent on the grace of the Executive branch would be a dereliction of duty,

“[T]he court has the responsibility to ensure that unrestrained zeal does not include gaming the system in a way that deprives an individual of constitutional protections that were established by our wise founders and preserved by subsequent brave patriots … This foundational principle is part of what has made, and will continue to make, America great.”