JAMAICAN MAN DODGES ICE IN COURTHOUSE

Federal immigration agents left the Derby courthouse empty-handed Thursday after they tried to take a defendant due there into custody.

Ansonia resident Domar Shearer, 23, was in Superior Court in connection with two Sept. 23 misdemeanor arrests. Shaundrece Beckford, Shearer’s wife, said her husband’s case was continued until Nov. 21.

Activists from Unidad Latina en Acción showed up at the courthouse after learning Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had arrived to take custody of Shearer. He hid in the public defender’s office for more than seven hours.

When the courthouse closed at 5 p.m., the ICE agents left without comment — and without Shearer.

Minutes later, he was led out of the building and quickly hustled into a waiting vehicle. Beckford said Shearer was being taken to a safe location.

The couple has been living in Ansonia for about four months. At the courthouse Thursday afternoon, Beckford said her husband came to the United States from Jamaica on a visa, which he overstayed.

She said Shearer was arrested by Ansonia police at their home.

“He got into an altercation at home with a girlfriend of mine and he was told by the officers not to return for the night, just to let everything die down,” Beckford said. “But he was barefoot — no shoes on, didn’t have proper things to leave — so then he came back.”

She said her friend confronted Shearer when he came back and then Beckford’s friend called police and told them “he’s here trying to kill me.”

But police officials later Thursday night painted a different picture of what happened that night.

Lt. Patrick Lynch said the man was arrested first on charges of second-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace after police initially responded to the home around 8 p.m.

“We arrested him twice that night,” Lynch said. “First for a domestic violence with her (the wife) and the second arrest was because her girlfriend tried to step in between them to mediate the argument that was going on.”

Lynch said Shearer agreed to leave the home for the night to “cool down.” But about two hours later, police got another call for a disturbance at the same home, Lynch said.

Police charged Shearer with third-degree assault, second-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace when they arrested him the second time.

“He was taken into custody and the two cases generated from that,” Lynch said.

Beckford said immigration agents tried to take custody of Shearer last month but “his public defender begged for him to be released until the 31st.”

She said his husband went back to the courthouse as planned Thursday with a private attorney and got a continuance.

But after the court appearance, she said, they learned ICE agents were there to take Shearer into custody. So, Beckford said, her husband was told he had to stay in the public defender’s office to avoid ICE agents because it was the only place “they couldn’t go.”

For hours Thursday, the ICE agents kept an awkward vigil in the courtroom hallway outside the public defender’s office — watched by between six and a dozen ULA activists at any given time.

The agents declined to comment.

“ICE is disrupting the administration of justice in our courts, snatching people away before they can see the judge and have their day in court” said a statement sent later Thursday night from John Lugo, community organizer with ULA. “Today we showed that if the people come together, we can protect our courts from ICE terror. We can protect justice in our courts.”

The director of immigration and racial justice at Vera Institute, Kica Matos, said in a statement later Thursday that activists will continue to build “the rapid response network” to be in every courthouse.

“We demand that the Connecticut Judicial Branch take action to get ICE out of our courts.” Matos said. “Connecticut state police and judicial marshals must follow the Connecticut TRUST Act instead of helping ICE disrupt due process in our courts.”

In a prepared statement, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he contacted the regional and Connecticut offices of ICE and urged its agents to comply with “Chief Court Administrator (Patrick) Carroll’s request that ICE agents leave the Derby Superior Courthouse and allow for the court to function properly.”

“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.”

The Connecticut Judicial Branch declined to comment.

A statement from the office of state Attorney General William Tong said he reached out to ICE Thursday afternoon “to express his concern for public safety and to ask ICE to avoid escalating this situation.”

ULA Director John Lugo questioned whether the agents’ presence violated the recently passed Trust Act, which limits local and state law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration officials.

“These people shouldn’t even be here,” Lugo said. “We believe that court marshals and state police are violating the state law, the Connecticut Trust Act.

“We have asked the Connecticut Judicial Branch to keep ICE out of our courthouses,” Lugo said, but instead they are collaborating with ICE to interrupt the administration of justice in our state.”

David McGuire, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, also said the ICE agents never should have been there.

“ICE should not be in Connecticut’s courthouse, and it should not have been in the Derby courthouse today,” McGuire said in astatement. “When ICE uses courthouses as hunting grounds for deportation, they are undermining public safety and justice, and they are hurting our communities.”

McGuire also called on 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.”

Revision to the 2013 Connecticut Trust Act was signed off on by Gov. Ned Lamont in June. The changes took effect Oct. 1. The legislation sets conditions for state and local law enforcement authorities for voluntary cooperation with ICE officials seeking to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.

The modifications included prohibiting law enforcement from detaining someone solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer unless the person is guilty of the most serious felonies, is on the terrorist watch list or a judicial warrant has been issued.

The changes also included limitation of law enforcement sharing information with ICE. It also requires law enforcement to tell an individual when ICE has requested their detention.