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Thursday, May. 29, 2025

Have ICE officers in Arizona been waiting at courthouses to make arrests?

Carmela Guaglianone, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting
yes

In May 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were reportedly stationed in and outside of courthouses nationwide, including in Arizona. 

During Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE issued new guidelines allowing officers to arrest migrants in areas previously considered off-limits for immigration enforcement—like courthouses—when they believe a suspect will be there. 

In a statement to local media, an ICE spokesperson said the migrants will be subject to expedited removal, a process that bypasses standard procedures like deportation hearings and judicial review. Historically applied to undocumented migrants apprehended at or near the border, expedited removal was recently expanded by the Trump administration to apply to nearly all undocumented migrants unable to prove two years of continuous U.S. residency. That expansion is being challenged in court. 

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The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting is the state’s only independent, nonpartisan and collaborative nonprofit newsroom dedicated to statewide, data-driven investigative reporting. AZCIR's mission is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable by exposing injustice and systemic inequities through investigative journalism.

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