ICE Folds In Immigrant Standoff

Activists escorted a 23-year-old Jamaican immigrant to New Haven Thursday evening after prevailing in a dramatic six-hour standoff against federal agents.

The standoff occurred at state court in Derby, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apparently showed up Thursday morning to arrest the immigrant, Domar Shearer, who has overstayed his visa here. Shearer was in court on unrelated misdemeanor charges.

A public defender kept Shearer in his office as agents waited in a hallway. Immigrant rights activists descended on the courthouse, too, determined to try to thwart the arrest.

So matters remained until court closed at 5 p.m. Then the agents were asked to leave the building. They hopped into a white SUV and drove away.

The activists, meanwhile, shuttled Shearer to New Haven’s People’s Center on Howe Street to plot their next moves.

How It Unfolded

ICE is looking for a man who looks just like you, a public defender told Shearer around 11 a.m. at the Derby courthouse on Elizabeth Street. Hide in my office until they leave the building.

Shearer came to the court for a hearing related to his arrest in Ansonia on Sept. 23 on misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault, second-degree threatening, and breach of peace.

Representatives from the New Haven-based Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) have spent the morning and afternoon camped out in the halls of the Derby state courthouse, keeping their eyes on the suspected ICE agents, as well as on judicial marshals and state police officials who have also been on the scene.

Shearer’s wife, Shaundrece Beckford, said that her husband is a hard-working immigrant from the St. James area of Jamaica. He emigrated from the poverty-stricken and violent area of his home country to the United States three years ago, she said. ​“He just came here looking for opportunity.”
He currently works as a waiter at a Jamaican restaurant in Bridgeport, she said, pulling 12-hour shifts, five days a week.

His judicial system saga began late last September, she said, when Shearer got into a ​“verbal dispute” with Beckford and two of her friends at their Ansonia home.

One of Beckford’s friends called the police, she said. They came, de-escalated the situation, and told Shearer to stay away from the home for the night and come back the following day.

He said OK, Beckford said. But he didn’t have any money, or even any shoes on, when the police gave him the order to stay away.

So he came back to the house soon after the police left to pick up a bookbag with some money and clothes.

Beckford’s friend saw Shearer returning and called the police, saying Shearer was trying to kill Beckford. 

Shearer and the friend wrestled over control of the phone, Beckford said.

By the time the police returned, Shearer was no longer at the house, but rather sitting in a park off of Third Street.

They arrested him, she said, sent him to jail for the night, then released him with a promise to appear and a protection order that required him to stay away from both his wife and his wife’s friend.

Beckford said that she and Shearer subsequently got the court to amend the protection order to apply only to Beckford’s friend. The husband and wife, who have been married since early August, were then ordered to go to family court. Beckford has a 4‑year/old child.

At family court, Beckford said, Shearer got a deal whereby he would pay a fine and participate in a diversionary program, since he had no previous criminal record.

She and Shearer subsequently received a letter from the bail commissioner, she said, ordering Shearer to show up in court at Derby on Thursday.
​“So he came here this morning, and thought everything was fine,” Beckford said.

That’s when a public defender pulled Shearer aside. The public defender said that there were four ICE agents in the building, and that Shearer matched the description of the man they were looking for.

“So they hid him in there,” Beckford said about the public defender’s office at the courthouse.

“That’s where he’s been for seven hours.”

“He’s not a violent person,” she continued. ​“He’s only 23 years old. We are just completely in shock.”

She said that Shearer had come to the United State three years ago on a work visa, and simply stayed past its expiration date. The two got married with the hopes of earning him citizenship that way, she said.

As far as she knows, Beckford said, Shearer has received no other deportation orders before today’s ICE confrontation. No ICE officials have said anything to her all day or answered any questions she’s asked, she said.

“Why has no one said anything to me,” she said. ​“I’m not chopped liver. I’m a United States citizen.”

And indeed, the apparent ICE officials have spent all morning and afternoon by the metal detectors inside the small state courthouse.

The ULA activists said their strategy is to hang around long enough and publicly shame the ICE officials until the latter feel compelled to depart.

ULA’s John Lugo of New Haven, who went to the scene, said that the mere presence of the state police official implies a cooperation between state police and ICE that is a violation of the CT TRUST Act.

“We believe that court marshals and state police are violating the state law, the Connecticut TRUST Act,” Lugo stated. ​“We have asked the Connecticut Judicial Branch to keep ICE out of our courthouses, but instead they are collaborating with ICE to interrupt the administration of justice in our state.”

Brian Foley, a spokesperson for the state police, told the Independent in an email comment that state police went to the scene — but not assisting ICE.

“We were called by the courthouse for a general disturbance,” he said. ​“We responded due to the fact that a disturbance was reported in the court house and the CT State police provide public safety and police services to state property. We did not assist with ICE with any immigration matter. No arrest were made. All questions regarding this incident should be directed to ICE as they’re the primary agency dealing with the matter.”

(A spokesman with ICE’s Boston office released this statement Friday: ​“ICE ERO officers have been provided broad at-large arrest authority by Congress and may lawfully arrest removable aliens in courthouses, which is often necessitated by local policies that prevent law enforcement from cooperating with ICE efforts to arrange for a safe and orderly transfer of custody in the setting of a state or county prison or jail and put political rhetoric before public safety.

(“In this case, when it appeared that the activists’ disruptive activities created an unsafe environment, ICE officers departed. It is ironic that activists and even elected officials want to see policies in place to keep ICE out of courthouses, while caring little for laws enacted by Congress to keep criminal aliens out of our country. Despite attempts to prevent ICE officers from doing their jobs, ICE will continue to carry out its mission to uphold public safety and enforce immigration law, and consider carefully whether to refer those who obstruct our lawful enforcement efforts for criminal prosecution.”)

Apparently the ICE agents had been asked to leave the courthouse at the end of the day by state Chief Court Administrator Patrick Carrol. The news came out in the form of a statement from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal:

“Courthouses should be regarded as places to go where people can seek justice or be held accountable for violations of law,” Blumenthal said. ​“Maintaining the rule of law and orderly conduct of justice is paramount. That is why I supported the Chief Court Administrator in this situation.”

Blumenthal also contacted ICE and ​“strongly” urged them to listen to Carroll, according to the statement.

Elizabeth Benton, a spokesperson for state Attorney General William Tong, told the Independent that Tong has reached out to ICE ​“to express his concern for public safety and to ask ICE to avoid escalating this situation.”

ACLU Executive Director David McGuire issued the following statement: ““Today, activists with Unidad Latina en Acción were able to protect a Connecticut man from being seized by ICE at a Connecticut courthouse, and they never should have had to do so. ICE should not be in Connecticut’s courthouses, and it should not have been in the Derby courthouse today. When ICE uses courthouses as hunting grounds for deportation, they are undermining public safety and justice, and they are hurting our communities. Today’s is the most recent example of ICE jeopardizing safety and justice by attempting to deport people in and around Connecticut courthouses. It is long past time for the Connecticut Judicial Branch, including judicial marshals, to start standing up for safety and justice by adopting the policies, procedures, and rules necessary to keep ICE out of Connecticut courthouses, and the legislature must do its part to ensure the same.”