A coalition of immigrant and civil rights organizations is suing the Trump administration to stop arrests occurring at U.S. courthouses during immigration hearings.

The plaintiffs, spearheaded by the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) in their class-action lawsuit, argue that the federal authorities are penalizing immigrants for complying with the law and disturbing longstanding practice, which typically designated courthouses as off-limits for such arrests.

“For years, both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had policies limiting civil immigration-related arrests in immigration courts,” the 57-page lawsuit begins. “These policies were rooted in the commonsense recognition that such arrests hamper the fair administration of the immigration process and create a palpable fear that disincentivizes people from appearing for their hearings.”

“But in the first few days of the Trump administration, Defendants repealed those policies, exposing individuals who properly appear for their hearings, including to seek asylum and other relief, to the imminent threat of arrest and indefinite detention,” it continues.

Wide-scale courthouse arrests followed in May when the federal government began asking judges to dismiss civil proceedings against individuals “based on changed circumstances” – enabling U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to arrest them. The complaint says this “new campaign of courthouse arrests” is unlawful and “designed to strip noncitizens of their rights” under the federal statute that governs removal proceedings, and the due process clause of the Constitution.

As the civil rights groups tell it, DHS and DOJ – specifically through its Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) – have sent out directives to carry out President Donald Trump’s massive deportation agenda. DHS has implemented new policies to expand immigration arrests at so-called “sensitive areas,” while EOIR has issued “corresponding guidance” to immigration judges, stating any type of changed circumstances “constitutes a valid reason for dismissal.”

The Trump administration has allegedly gone even further by looking to fast-track deportations of individuals even if a judge hasn’t yet agreed to dismiss their case. According to the complaint, the placing of immigrants in expedited removal jeopardizes their legal recourse and significantly harms them as they follow the legal avenue for obtaining citizenship.

The lawsuit continues:

The consequences of Defendants’ actions are severe. Noncitizens, including most of the Individual Plaintiffs here, have been abruptly ripped from their families, lives, homes, and jobs for appearing in immigration court, a step required to enable them to proceed with their applications for permission to remain in this country. Some of those affected have been present in the United States for years, and many have been separated from family, including U.S. citizens. The aftermath of these courthouse arrests and dismissals for placement in expedited removal wreaks further havoc on people’s lives. People in expedited removal almost always remain detained. They also face additional hurdles in pursuing immigration relief, including diminished access to legal counsel and advice, and some immigration benefits become unavailable to them altogether. Even those benefits that they may still seek become far harder to obtain: Unless a DHS asylum officer decides that the noncitizen has asserted a credible fear of persecution, the person is subject to immediate removal without judicial review.

DHS touted its “common sense” courthouse arrests in May after having “rescinded” Biden administration-era “actions that thwarted law enforcement from carrying out immigration enforcement arrests in courthouses and emboldened criminal illegal aliens.”

These prior “actions” included only allowing ICE arrests in or near a courthouse in limited circumstances such as a national security or public safety threat – as well as DHS forgoing expedited removal, per the lawsuit.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., cites several individual plaintiffs whose cases have reportedly been upended by unarticulated “changed circumstances” that the government doesn’t specify. The individual plaintiffs are largely immigrants fearful of being persecuted in their home countries — where they may also face threats of sexual assault — due to disagreements with the governments.

The plaintiffs want the court to block the administration from carrying out its policy changes that have enabled the uptick in arrests at courthouses across the country – as well as to bar the federal government from deporting or transferring any of the individual plaintiffs to a jurisdiction other than where they are being held.

“We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration,” said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at NIJC. “People who attend their hearings to seek permission to remain in this country and comply with U.S. immigration law are being rounded up and abruptly ripped from their families, homes, and livelihoods. Meanwhile, the administration is issuing directives telling immigration judges to violate those same immigration laws and strip people of fundamental due process rights.”

Another plaintiff’s attorney, Jordan Wells of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the directives from the Trump administration “forsake any notion of immigration courts as a neutral forum,” calling them “a trap for immigrants who show up in reliance on the American promise of a fair process before a judge, only to be met instead with handcuffs and shunted into a fast-track deportation process controlled by ICE agents.”

When reached for comment by Law&Crime, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “We aren’t some medieval kingdom, there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law. Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.”

“The ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense. It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be,” she added. “It is also safer for our officers and the community. These illegal aliens have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons. Secretary [Kristi] Noem is empowering law enforcement to use common sense to remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities.”

The DOJ declined to comment.

The president made a vow on the campaign trail last year to deport millions of illegal immigrants. After reported dissatisfaction at the highest levels of the federal government in May over the number of arrests, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller laid out a goal of arresting 3,000 illegal immigrants per day.