Editor’s note: Leer este artículo en español.
In 2025, three plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — one concealing his face with a balaclava — detained two men at the Albemarle County Courthouse in downtown Charlottesville, sparking protests and fears among the immigrant community about their safety when attending scheduled court hearings.
Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed legislation that would have restricted civil immigration arrests inside state courthouses and polling places unless officers had a judicial warrant, as reported by VPM. Along with the veto, Spanberger issued an executive order saying that state agencies would “confirm” that federal agents entering any nonpublic areas of state property for the purpose of immigration enforcement have a valid warrant.
Courthouse arrests like the ones in Albemarle County were not isolated incidents. Since the second Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation efforts at the start of 2025, news organizations across the country, such as PBS and the Associated Press, have documented ICE agents arresting people in and outside of courthouses nationwide.
Community members and local advocates told Charlottesville Tomorrow that the courthouse arrests have left some immigrant community members afraid to attend required court hearings, even as failing to appear in court can carry serious legal consequences.
To help answer some of the most common questions we’re hearing, Charlottesville Tomorrow spoke with Elizabeth Schmelzel, a Charlottesville-based senior immigration attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center and a University of Virginia School of Law lecturer, about what immigrants should know before going to court. Keep in mind that every case is different, and this information is not a substitute for legal advice.
Charlottesville Tomorrow: Should immigrant community members still attend their immigration court hearings? What are the risks associated with missing a court hearing?
Elizabeth Schmelzel: The risks of not going to court are extremely high. If you don’t go to court, you will almost always get a removal order. The reason why that’s so risky is, if you get a removal order in your name, then ICE has another reason — and now they have a legal basis — to pursue you for detention and removal.
So it is extremely high-risk. As an attorney, I do not ever advise someone to skip their immigration hearing.
The other important thing to note is that there was a federal district court in California about a month ago — the date I believe was June 23 — that has said the administration can no longer send ICE agents to immigration courts to arrest non-citizens while they’re at court.*
So here in Virginia, we are not seeing ICE arrests at immigration courts the way we were, say, 10 or 12 months ago. And now there’s this decision, which means it shouldn’t be happening anywhere. Of course, you can never guarantee anything, but that’s important for people to know.
*Editor’s note: In June, Judge Casey Pitts in the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California ruled that ICE agents nationwide cannot make arrests in immigration courts. The decision is likely to face further legal challenges, according to reporting by The New York Times (subscription required).
We’ve heard arrests at immigration courts were already steadily declining in Virginia. Why?
That is an excellent question. I have no idea. So this is totally anecdotal: It (immigration court arrests) seemed — in our experience from just our team when we were at court — to really peak in August and September of 2025, and then it sort of dissipated. It happened in the summer too; it definitely happened in June and July. We saw it kind of rise in August and September, and then it sort of fell, and I cannot tell you at all why that is.
What was the situation with ICE arrests in Virginia courthouses before the decline?
In criminal court, ICE arrests had been happening even under the Biden administration. But not with the same frequency.
In immigration courts, I had never seen arrests in my career before January 2025. It was shocking. I have a client now who was arrested last summer at immigration court. We have a couple of clients who are still detained after those arrests. So we definitely saw people arrested at immigration court in the past year. But like I said, we had this sort of swell, and then it kind of slowed down. I would say after September-ish, October, we didn’t see it nearly as much.
But yes, we definitely saw more than just, you know, some of the big examples that got published in the media. In Sterling Immigration Court and Annadale Immigration Court*, there were courthouse arrests for several months.
*Editor’s note: Sterling Immigration Court and Annandale Immigration Court are the two main immigration courts for much of central Virginia, including Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
What risk-mitigation steps can be taken before attending court if someone is still worried about being arrested by ICE, in or out of court?
In terms of risk mitigation, again, it (arrests at immigration courts) is decreasing and shouldn’t be happening at all because of the policy being vacated. But if anyone’s worried about ICE arrests more generally, then definitely having a plan in place is really important.
Definitely having a plan for childcare and any assets, that should be done in advance as a family. Different states have different rules about that. Here in Virginia, there’s something called a standby guardianship. There are powers of attorney that you can have for any big decision that may need to be made in your absence, but the way to do that often depends on state law.
Even if there’s no formal process, families should definitely at least prepare amongst themselves. Like, who would I want the kids to go with? Who’s going to communicate to the school if I am — God forbid — detained or deported? It is good to have an emergency plan in place if someone is at risk of an arrest.
People should also, if they can, write down or memorize their A-number* if they have one, and the phone number of any legal or advocacy team that they are working with. Whether that’s a community member that’s been helping them with an asylum application, or if they’re fully represented, then their attorney. They should write those numbers down on their arm because they’re not going to be able to take anything inside a detention center with them.
*Editor’s note: An A-Number (Alien Registration Number) is a unique seven, eight or nine-digit identifier starting with the letter “A” assigned by the Department of Homeland Security to track noncitizen records. It is permanent for life and appears on official documents like green cards and work permits.
What should you do if ICE officers approach you in or outside of immigration court?
Again, ICE officers should not be in immigration court. For criminal court, it’s very different. If someone is in criminal court, then ICE sort of has a probable cause for knowing that they have possibly committed a crime, so it’s a little more complicated at criminal court.
But either way, what people can do is say, ‘I have a right to remain silent, which I’m going to exercise, and I would like to speak to my attorney,’ you know, if they have one. It is a very, very bad idea to run or to try to escape because that gives law enforcement probable cause to then make an arrest.
Would you give the same advice about attending your hearing for criminal court?
So I’m not a criminal attorney, and a lot of people in criminal court, thankfully, they are often appointed a public defender. And so that’s definitely a conversation that people need to have with their attorney. But — I’m not a criminal lawyer — but what I do know is, not attending a criminal hearing, there are also legal consequences. So you can get another charge, a failure to appear. You can get a bench warrant. Like there are lots of consequences that are very serious for the criminal case and the immigration case. So again, as an immigration lawyer, I cannot, nor would I ever, tell someone not to attend a hearing because they’re being ordered by the court to attend, and that means I have to advise my clients to follow the law.
If a community member is arrested by ICE, what happens next, and what steps can they or family members take?
So there’s something called the ICE detainee locator, and it’s locator.ice.gov. And if your loved one gets arrested, you can search for them by A-number and then the country of nationality. That’s why having the whole family know that A-number is really helpful. When you look that up, you can see where people are being held. I will say, sometimes in like the first 24 — maybe even the first 72 hours — people are getting shuffled around so they’re not showing up in that system. That can be very, very scary. And so unfortunately it can be a bit of a waiting game, but that’s the way to find folks.
Then, we (the Legal Aid Justice Center) here in Virginia are part of a coalition with other community groups that runs a hotline, so when people get detained, they — from detention — or their loved one, can call this hotline. We staff the hotline many hours a day, but not 24 hours a day. So people can leave their information with us, and we will screen them for any legal services that we can provide directly or refer them to perhaps other organizations who can.
And that’s called the PODER VA rapid response hotline, which can be reached at 1-844-253-7882 (or 844-ALERT-VA.)
Take action
Here’s what you can do if someone you know is detained by ICE
If you believe a friend or family member has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, you can search for them using the official Online Detainee Locator System. You will need the individual’s Alien Registration Number and country of birth, or their exact full name, date of birth and country of origin. However, if they were recently detained, they will likely not be in the system yet.
If you do not find the detainee in the online system, you can contact the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office nearest to where the person was picked up. If the person is not in an ICE-operated detention facility, they may have also been taken to a local jail or correctional facility.
For assistance, including help locating someone you suspect might have been picked up by ICE and connecting to immigration attorneys, you can also contact Charlottesville-based non-profit community organization Sin Barreras by calling 434-531-0104 or emailing info[AT]sinbarrerascville[DOT]org. Individuals who are interested in getting a limited power of attorney and appointment of standby guardianship for a loved one who may be at potential risk of ICE detention can also contact Sin Barreras for assistance starting the process.
You can also contact The PODER VA rapid response hotline, which is run by the Legal Aid Justice Center and partner immigrant defense organizations, and can be reached at 1-844-253-7882 (1-844-ALERT-VA). The line operates daily from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and will help connect community members to urgent legal resources. Individuals who are detained can also call the hotline from detention for assistance.
Find more tools and resources to prepare yourself in case of an immigration emergency — including know your rights information, family preparedness and planning resources and more — through the Legal Aid Justice Center’s Rapid Response Toolkit.
