HOUSTON – A day after multiple immigrants were detained at a Houston immigration court in southwest Houston on June 10, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made another arrest at the same courthouse.
READ: ICE detains multiple people at Houston’s immigration court
On June 11, KPRC 2 was notified that agents were waiting at the Greenspoint Park Immigration Court, located at 16800 Greenspoint Park Dr.
KPRC 2’s Re’Chelle Turner spotted plainclothes ICE agents outside the immigration courthouse on Greenspoint Park Dr.
For the past two weeks, 2 Investigates has been looking into which cases are being targeted for arrest.
On June 10, 2 Investigates, Robert Arnold and the team were present when three people were detained at the immigration court on S. Gessner at the Southwest Freeway.
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An immigration attorney, Bianca Santorini, told 2 Investigates that two of the men detained on Tuesday are from Venezuela and one is from Mexico.
Santorini said the individuals were accused of crossing the border illegally but were allowed to remain in the United States while their asylum claims were pending.
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However, on Tuesday, a judge dismissed the government’s case against the men. Santorini stated that the dismissals were made at the request of federal prosecutors.
Immigration Attorney Kim Bruno says arrests like this will continue across the Houston area and it’s making undocumented immigrants afraid to go anywhere.
“ICE going to job sites, ICE going to locations where there are known to have undocumented immigrants working,” Bruno said. “People who don’t have either residency status or have overstayed visas...Everybody’s being targeted.”
Bruno told our Re’Chelle Turner many undocumented immigrants just want due process.
A statement from the US Department of Homeland Security reads that it is revoking the parole granted to those caught illegally crossing the border during the last two years of President Joe Biden’s administration.
DHS released a statement on arrests at immigration courts:
“Secretary Noem is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets. This Administration is once again implementing the rule of law.
“Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals. Biden ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been.
ICE released the following statement on this issue:
“Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials throughout the country routinely engage in enforcement activity at or near courthouses for both criminal and civil matters. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activities at or near courthouses is wholly consistent with this longstanding law enforcement practice.
“ICE officers and agents seek to conduct enforcement actions at an alternate location when practicable, however when no other location is feasible or when the alternate location increases the risk to public safety or the safety of our officers, ICE will seek to effectuate the arrest in the location that is least likely to endanger anyone’s safety.”
