By Jorge Luis Macias
State Senator Eloise Gomez-Reyes’ bill SB 873, known as “Kick ICE Out of Courts,” aims to ban federal civil immigration detainers within 1,000 feet of state courts without a warrant.
Following the Thursday morning arrest of four immigrants outside the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse by masked federal agents, supporters of the bill consider it more than ever necessary for Governor Gavin Newsom to sign it into law.
“Right now there is some protection for our immigrants—or for anyone—who is inside the courtroom during a judicial proceeding,” Senator Gómez-Reyes told La Opinión.
“The problem we face is that ICE agents are waiting—or, in fact, lurking—in court, listening to testimony, and subsequently following our immigrants to the parking lot to arrest them.”
The recently introduced bill will protect immigrants within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of the courthouse, whether entering or leaving the courthouse.
The legislator (D- San Bernardino) indicated that this is the protection that people need.
The senator herself has just witnessed the four arrests in a town in her district, in a short period of time.
“We observe that this situation is repeated with increasing frequency: they enter the courts and stalk people,” he indicated. “They look at people’s skin color, language spoken, and where they work; these are the criteria they use to make indiscriminate arrests.”
Kavanaugh Arrests
In September, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion — issued in connection with a 2025 emergency order — that federal immigration officials can use factors such as language, ethnicity or occupation as one of the elements in determining whether a person is in the country illegally, although not as the only ingredient.
That order responded to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against immigration officials for having improperly used race when carrying out immigration raids at Dwelling Depot stores in Los Angeles since June 6 and subsequent months.
This ruling has led some to call street arrests carried out by federal agents “Kavanaugh arrests,” who is credited with empowering masked ICE agents to continue acting with impunity and using race as an ingredient in the detentions, arrests and deportations ordered by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief and National Security Advisor.
Chaos in the Rancho Cucamonga court
SB 873 would protect people from harassment and arrest both when entering and leaving courthouses, as well as during judicial proceedings.
According to witnesses, on Thursday, shortly before 9:30 a.m., a man was in the parking lot of the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse with his son when masked officers surrounded him and detained him.
Two other men were later taken into custody after leaving court.
This bill was introduced in January and amended after consultation with the Public Defenders Association, an organization that is co-sponsoring the initiative, along with the California Rural Legal Systems Foundation and the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
“When ICE agents stalk our courts, it effectively blocks access to justice. A democracy where you can be arrested simply for going to court is not a democracy at all,” said Kate Chatfield, executive director of the California Public Defenders Association..
“SB 873 closes a dangerous loophole that ICE has been exploiting and makes clear that California courts must remain accessible to all,” he added. “This is not just an issue that concerns immigrants; it is an issue that concerns all Californians and democracy.”
Tina Rosales-Torres, Policy Advocate at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, stated that “When people are pushed out of the justice system, inequality deepens.”
He added that SB 873 would help ensure that low-income communities and immigrant communities can access the courts.
“Justice only works if people can access it safely, and it should never depend on who feels safe enough to come forward,” Rosales-Torres emphasized.
Similar projects
Although the application of immigration laws is federal in nature, attorney Eloise Gómez-Reyes, in her capacity as a California legislator, stated that she wants to make it clear “that we are doing everything in our power to fight for the people who make up our community in this state.”
In fact, he reported that similar legislation has been presented to fundamentally protect the integrity of judicial facilities and immigrants in the states of New York, Illinois (Chicago) and Washington.
Senator Gómez-Reyes hopes that, if SB 873 is enacted into law, ICE agents will no longer show contempt for the human, civil and constitutional rights of both immigrants and American citizens.
Indeed, to the murder of Renee True and nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January of this year, there were added the deaths of 14 Mexicans, either in encounters with federal ICE or Border Patrol agents, or in custody within the private prisons of The GEO Community and CoreCivic: Avelardo Avellaneda Delgado, Jesús Molina Veya. Jaime Alanís García, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas. Óscar Rascón Duarte, Silverio Villegas González.
Also: Ismael Ayala Uribe, Miguel Ángel García Hernánde, Leo Cruz Silva, Heber Sánchez Domínguez, Alberto Gutiérrez Reyes, Royer Pérez Jiménez and José Guadalupe Ramos Solano.
‘Like the Gestapo’
“Immigration agents have ignored the law,” said Senator Eloise Gómez-Reyes. “The classic legal principle we have is due process. You cannot deprive a person of their liberty or life without due process; yet this principle has been ignored by every ICE agent I have read about, seen, or heard from.”
“Due process is a basic pillar of our legal system,” he added. “It is an argument that we have been raising from the beginning against these ICE agents, who show a total disregard not only for immigrants, but also for American citizens.”
He asserted that the fact that they wear masks and are armed, that they detain people without court orders and place them in unmarked vehicles and deport them or transport them out of our country, “all of these are actions that one would expect to see in the Gestapo – as we have read that happened in Germany – but not here, in the United States.”
“We are not some kind of medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where one can hide and avoid the consequences of breaking the law,” said Tricia McLaughlin, DHS Under Secretary for Public Affairs, in a statement to NewsFromtheStates. “Nothing in the Constitution prohibits arresting anyone who breaks the law wherever they are found.”
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