The Alameda County Public Defender's Office is urging local law enforcement agencies to help protect courthouses from immigration sweeps after one of its clients was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last week.
Public Defender Brendon Woods said yesterday (Monday) that the man was taken by ICE after a criminal court hearing in Oakland on Sept. 15 -- the first such arrest by ICE inside an Alameda County courthouse.
The Oaklandside reports after leaving what Woods' office described as a routine pre-trial hearing in front of a judge at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse, the man was "accosted" in a hallway by two plainclothes agents, who said they were with ICE.
The Public Defender’s Office said they took the man out of the building, put him into an unmarked vehicle and eventually deposited him at a detention facility.
Woods is asking local law enforcement leaders to help ensure the county's courthouses are protected "as places of safety and due process."