Immigration activists are demanding that Sheriff Rochelle Bilal do more to prevent ICE arrests in and around Philadelphia’s criminal courthouse.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have apprehended more than 90 people this year at the Justice Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice (CJC), according to Juntos, a South Philadelphia-based group that tracks immigration arrests. That total is three times the number of individuals detained in 2024, advocates said.
“ICE confidently wanders the hallways of this courthouse day after day after day, using restricted access entrances and targeting specific courtrooms,” Lenore Ramos, community defense organizer for Juntos, said at a rally Thursday.
No ICE Philly, a coalition that formed in September, is calling on Bilal to ban federal immigration agents from entering the courthouse; protect those observing and filming ICE arrests; and make sure deputy sheriffs are not sharing information with agents.
Bilal, whose office oversees security in the city’s courthouses, put out a video last week in which she states that her officers do not pass along intelligence to ICE or participate in enforcing federal immigration laws.
“When ICE agents come into a courthouse, our deputies verify their credentials and make sure they follow all courthouse procedures,” she said in the 2-minute clip. “They are not permitted to make arrests inside the courtroom or anywhere inside the courthouse.”
“Our policy indicates that, outside of the building or on public property, we have no legal authority to interfere with any lawful activity. But inside, everyone’s rights and safety are protected equally under the law.”
Leaders of No ICE Philly expressed skepticism.
“Sheriff Bilal can get on Instagram and can tell us that she doesn't collaborate with ICE, that her officers don't collaborate with ICE,” the Rev. Jay Bergen, pastor of Germantown Mennonite Church, said, “but we see what her officers do here in this building almost every day.”
Ramos noted that concerns about courthouse arrests are not new. Juntos, the District Attorney’s Office and the Defender Association of Philadelphia gathered outside the CJC in December 2023 after about two dozen ICE arrests that year.
That was under President Joe Biden, whose administration instructed ICE agents to only detain individuals inside or near courthouses in a very limited set of circumstances. His successor, Donald Trump, revoked that policy.
At the time, DA Larry Krasner said that such enforcement dissuades undocumented victims and witnesses from coming to court and reporting crimes.
On Thursday, No ICE Philly congregated at the courthouse entrance at Filbert and Juniper streets, in the shadow of City Hall, singing and holding up cardboard signs depicting eyes, as a significant number of deputy sheriffs and Philadelphia police officers looked on.
“We want Sheriff Rochelle to know we are watching,” Aniqa Raihan, one of the group’s core members, said. “You’re on notice, Sheriff Bilal.”
Organizers invited Bilal to address their concerns at a news conference they will be staging in the same location at noon on Thursday, Dec. 4.
