Immigrant Advocates Pressure Local Boards to Support Bill Limiting ICE Activity in Courthouses

At their Poughkeepsie office, organizers with the immigrant advocacy group, Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, were plotting two weeks of almost daily visits to meetings of local lawmaking bodies to drum up support for the Protect Our Courts Act. Their first stops were council meetings in Poughkeepsie and Beacon on Monday evening.

The bill — cosponsored by Assemblymen Jonathan Jacobson, Kevin Cahill and 45 others — would make it unlawful for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to detain people on administrative warrants inside a courthouse.

“We think it’s important to show our assembly members and state senators that locally there is a lot of support for the act,” NLMH Executive Director Jonathan Bix said on Monday afternoon, “and that ICE’s detentions and attempted detentions at courthouses is hurting everyone, hurting their abilities to function.” At Monday evening’s Poughkeepsie Common Council meeting, close to 50 NLMH activists showed up to ask for the council’s collective support.