Antoinette Sedillo Lopez hopes to require judicial warrants for ICE to make NM courthouse arrests after a criminal-defense lawyer told Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee that ICE arrests people when they attend court proceedings or as they leave courthouses.
Albuquerque attorney Tova Indritz said domestic-violence victims are afraid to go to court to seek restraining orders; witnesses and litigants don’t appear when called to testify. “We know of many instances where ICE officers, generally in plain clothes, attend a court hearing to see who identifies as a particular person, then follow the person out of the courtroom and make an arrest in the hallway, leaving the courthouse, or while the person is walking back to [a] vehicle.'
NM Supreme Court last year denied a petition by attorneys and advocacy organizations to require judicial warrants for arrests at courthouses.
At www.santafenewmexican.com
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