Just minutes after wrapping up his immigration court hearing on Tuesday, a man was surrounded by federal immigration officers and led away. A family member was left in tears, unsure of where he had been taken.
The arrest took place on the fifth floor of the John E. Moss Federal Building in downtown Sacramento.
Two NorCal Resist volunteers and one other immigrant were the only ones there to witness the detainment.
“I’m afraid,” an immigrant from Venezuela who witnessed the detention said in Spanish. He asked to remain anonymous. “If it happened to him, it could happen to any of us.”
The arrest and the swift volunteer response offer a glimpse into what immigrant advocates are saying is becoming a more common and alarming pattern: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents making arrests in or outside courtrooms despite past federal guidance discouraging the practice.
“We can’t stop the arrests but we can show support for our immigrant community,” said Morgan Murphy, a volunteer with Sacramento-based mutual aid organization NorCal Resist. “We can do a little bit of harm reduction, making sure that their belongings aren’t lost and showing them that there are people that care.”
Murphy has volunteered with NorCal Resist for roughly a month and often attends hearings twice a week. She asked the four federal agents who apprehended the man, whom we’re calling Juan to protect his identity, to explain why he was being arrested but they refused to answer unless she was their attorney.
In this case, Juan had just received a new court date for October. His family member who will go by Maria said she had no idea this could happen so suddenly.
“I don’t know why, after court, they took him,” she said in Spanish. “They shouldn’t do that. We’re following the law. He hasn’t committed any crime here. I want them to release him.”
She said Juan is originally from Guatemala and came to the U.S. roughly two years ago seeking asylum. Maria said he had not missed any hearings or check-ins and he had no criminal record.
She now faces weeks or months of uncertainty. NorCal Resist has started helping her find a lawyer and showed her the detainee locator website to find her husband once he’s been processed. Advocates with the group said the lack of transparency and support in these moments often leaves the families of those detained in a state of shock.
After the arrest
NorCal Resist volunteers walked Maria out of the federal building and accompanied her to their headquarters, where she was connected with Goya Gutierrez, accompaniment team lead for the organization. Gutierrez went over next steps starting with showing her how to search the ICE detainee locator and giving her a list of attorneys she should call.
After reviewing her documents, Gutierrez said they were doing everything right.
“They haven’t missed an appointment, they filled out their asylum application, they’re attending their hearings, check-ins, and then she’s asking, ‘Why him? What did he do wrong’” Gutierrez said. “We don’t have an answer.”
Gutierrez said she’s seen an increase in arrests following immigration court hearings and ICE check-ins.
“Last week I was doing about three or so intakes every single day,” she said. “Yesterday, we had a day with no arrests at the court, so I consider that a very good day. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing folks arrested almost daily following a court or ICE appointment.”
Later that day, volunteers drove Maria to a nearby grocery store to buy her groceries, but they walked out shortly after as Maria just wanted to go home. They did, however, add minutes to her phone plan because she had just ran out.
The White House ‘invasion’ narrative
In January, a White House executive order claimed that mass illegal immigration has cost billions, posed national security threats and led to an abuse of American generosity.
Critics argue these claims are overblown and inconsistent with data. The Deportation Data Project found in looking at the ICE arrest data that of the nearly 100,000 people arrested between 2017 and June 2025, over 70% didn’t have criminal records. Additionally, only 7% of ICE’s detention population had violent convictions.
Overcrowding at ICE facilities where immigrants are detained is also putting a strain on their resources. As of last month, over 56,000 were detained despite only having a capacity for 40,000.
A recent study by Scholars Strategy Network, a nonprofit that aims to improve public policy and strengthen democracy, found that immigration detention is “extremely costly to the federal government but is lucrative for private companies, local government and individual employees.”
For context, a 2018 study from the National Immigration Forum found that the average daily cost of detaining an immigrant was $208 per day.
What the law says
According to immigration attorney JJ Mulligan of the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic, arrests like this are not surprising — in fact, they’re becoming more frequent.
“There used to be a ‘safe space’ memo during the Biden years and the Obama years as well where ICE would not conduct any of its businesses in certain locations like schools, courthouses, hospitals, places like that,” he said. “There’s no real limits to where ICE can work right now.”
Mulligan said while it’s unclear why Juan was arrested, detentions can happen for several reasons, including old criminal charges, a violation of bond terms or a finding of fraud in immigration paperwork.
“It is very strange when someone’s in active removal proceedings, and they’ve already gotten an extension from the judge, that they would then decide to detain them,” he said.
He added that ICE and the immigration court system are collaborating more than ever under the Trump administration, which makes courtroom arrests more likely.
The result is a chilling effect, which Mulligan said leads many immigrants to avoid court attending at all. That’s a problem because missing court can result in automatic deportation.
“If you go, you get picked up by ICE, if you don’t go, you get an absentia order,” he said. “I haven’t heard of a lot happening at immigration courts, but if this is like a new trend, that is really concerning because there’s no good way for an immigrant to do the right thing.”
Mulligan advises people to have a plan, including having emergency contacts, writing down A-numbers, which are like social security numbers for undocumented immigrants, and to bring someone with them to court who knows what to do if something goes wrong.
