As people seeking asylum arrived for their scheduled court hearings in Phoenix weeks prior, the last thing they would have expected was walking away in handcuffs as ICE agents hovered just outside the doors, waiting to apprehend them.
It had been heard of in other states. Headlines were made in major cities early on in President Donald Trump’s second term, where accounts of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining undocumented immigrants quickly became viral.
Arizona, however, had yet to see this level of enforcement. That is, until mid-May, when masked ICE agents traveling in unmarked vehicles pulled up outside the Phoenix Immigration Court offices, arresting court-goers following the dismissal of their immigration cases…