As federal ICE agents continue to make arrests outside local courthouses, Rhode Island’s highest-ranking judge issued a rare press release on Thursday announcing that the state court system needs to “focus on ways to enhance access to virtual hearings and to educate the public as to how to request such hearings.”
The statement arrived at the end of a chaotic Thursday, during which court officials said ICE agents mistakenly detained a high school intern working in the Providence County Superior Court.
Those agents wound up face to face with protesters, who had gathered for a pre-scheduled rally to call on court officials to expand virtual hearing access. During the confrontation, a masked ICE agent stepped out of an unmarked vehicle to aim a taser at protesters before driving away.
“ICE is coming to court houses to pick people up because they know they have to come to court, right?” Providence City Council President Rachel Miller, who spoke at the rally, said in an interview. “And so by letting people engage the legal system in a virtual way, it eliminates that danger.”
Maya Lehrer, an organizer with the recently formed Rhode Island Deportation Defense Network, which hosted the rally, said the group began stationing volunteers outside local courthouses in September, and documenting frequent instances where ICE detained people on their way in or out.
On Thursday, though, ICE agents appeared to cross a line that drew a stern response from the state court system. In a statement released through a spokesperson, Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Suttell responded directly to the day’s events.
“This egregious incident underscores both the community’s and the judiciary’s concerns about how ICE is conducting its operations in Rhode Island,” Suttell said. “Given this climate, the judiciary understands the call to implement remote hearings in Providence County, and beyond.”
The Deportation Defense Network had issued a public demand earlier in the week for Suttell to “remove the legal red tape and require judges to offer virtual hearings, trials, and conferences, except in extraordinary circumstances.”
“This could instantly cut off a major source of ICE detentions in Rhode Island and allow immigrant community members to access the legal system without fear,” the network’s statement said.
Under current court policy, the network said that virtual court hearings can be requested, but few community members know how to access them, and the process requires a lawyer or legal advocate to effectively navigate.
“We did go fully virtual to protect families during Covid,” Miller said. “We know we can do the same again.”
In the chief justice’s public statement, Suttell said he cannot require judges to pivot entirely to virtual hearings at this time.
“The need to balance constitutional considerations, the public’s right of access, and the integrity of testimonial and evidentiary processes do not allow for a fully virtual court system,” he said. “What occurred today, however, reinforces the Judiciary’s need to focus on ways to enhance access to virtual hearings and to educate the public as to how to request such hearings.”
A court spokesperson, Alexandra Kriss, said the intern detained by ICE was released after agents confirmed they had the wrong person.
“If not for the intervention of a Superior Court judge who insisted that ICE had wrongfully identified his intern as their target,” Kriss said, “this young person would have been taken into ICE custody.”
