500 signatures reached
To: Chief Court Administrator Patrick Carroll:
ICE out of our Connecticut Courthouses
Judicial marshals voluntarily allow ICE unrestricted access to courthouses all across Connecticut. These choices to cooperate with ICE are immoral, cowardly, and a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
We demand:
* Judicial marshals must stop cooperating with ICE and respect the TRUST ACT NOW
* We call on Chief Court Administrator Patrick Carroll to enact a policy that restricts ICE from coming into or 500ft near CT courthouses
* Fire judicial marshals that have cooperated with ICE and are responsible for separating countless families
* Training for all law enforcement officers on TRUST ACT
* Reparations for impacted families
Why is this important?
On December 13, 2018, one of the most violent and horrifying acts of judicial marshals cooperating with ICE took place in Meriden, CT. Marshals, led by marshal Michael Dyson, became enforcers for ICE. Marshal Dyson and the other marshals, after voluntarily handing over an immigrant father to ICE, proceeded to brutalize his family as they tried to say goodbye, forcibly removed community members while they supported a distraught wife and children, and created a false narrative on official incident reports to justify their violent and rogue behavior. Marshal Dyson has proven that he is unable to resolve any matter in front of him with dignity and fairness nor can he be trusted to serve the interests of justice or the public. We are calling on marshal Michael Dyson to resign.
But Michael Dyson is not acting alone. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is a rogue and violent organization that relies on state and local resources to execute their deportation agenda. We have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of courthouse arrests in Connecticut. While ICE is a bad actor that is deliberately working to destroy families and weaken our communities, ICE would not be able to use our courthouses to execute their deportation agenda without the help of the state of Connecticut, its court administrators, and judicial marshals. Judicial marshals are directly working with ICE to aggressively enforce immigration detainers and granting ICE access to the lock-up and the sally port out of public view---[See our report here: COURTING ICE]. Judicial marshals voluntarily allow ICE unrestricted access to courthouses all across Connecticut. Remember: ICE detainers are NOT judicial warrants and judicial marshals are NOT legally obligated to honor detainer requests.
These choices to cooperate with ICE are immoral, cowardly, and a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.