Philadelphia advocates call on Sheriff Rochelle Bilal to keep ICE out of courthouse

A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups rallied in front of the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, demanding that Sheriff Rochelle Bilal limit arrests by federal immigration enforcement officials outside of the Criminal Justice Center.

More than 5,000 people signed the petition that advocates presented to Bilal at a meeting Monday. Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of immigrant-rights organization Juntos, said their demands include:

• Prohibiting immigration enforcement agents to claim cross-designation with other federal agencies when they enter the building
• Requiring immigration enforcement officers to wear visible badges and show their faces on courthouse premises
• Keeping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers off the courthouse grounds, including directly outside of the building, on sidewalks, parking lots and courthouse property
• Protecting, not intimidating, legal observers in and around the courthouse
• Providing monthly public reports on who entered the courthouse from which agencies, when they entered, and whether they had judicial warrants

Following Tuesday’s rally, Bilal told reporters that advocates’ assertions that her office is collaborating with ICE are “lies.”

Her office does not cooperate with immigration enforcement officers, she said, and does not permit ICE arrests in the courthouse. But she does not have legal authority outside of the building, she said.

“We do not police the streets. We do not man any parking lots owned by private entities,” she said.

Arrests outside of the courthouse have been an urgent issue for Juntos and other advocates since the end of 2023, Núñez said.

Advocates have alleged that courthouse arrests have risen in the past year, and the issue has become a flashpoint for organizers.

District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has said his office will prosecute ICE agents who commit crimes, has called for protections at the Criminal Justice Center. A recent statement from the First Judicial District, which oversees Philadelphia’s courts, said that Bilal has “sole responsibility” for managing ICE’s presence in the courthouse.

Aniqa Raihan, a volunteer with No ICE Philly, said the meeting with Bilal was a good first step, but advocates want to see “meaningful action, serious change, that protects our neighbors and everyone who goes to the courthouse.”

“Our message to Sheriff Bilal today is to know this,” she said. “We will not stop. We will continue to show up day after day, week after week, month after month, to demand that you take the steps that are within your power to protect our people.”

Bilal said No ICE Philly organizers have not yet given her any evidence of sheriff’s deputies collaborating with ICE officers. She said she has agreed to a follow-up meeting if they provide her with evidence.

“Most of their demands, they were asking us to do something illegal, which we’re not going to break the law,” she said. “We operate off the law, and that’s it.”

Bilal said there has been “one incident” of an immigration enforcement-related arrest in the courthouse. She said it was an immigration officer working with “a task force that deals with the DEA and the FBI,” and no sheriff’s deputies were involved.

ICE arrests are happening outside of the courthouse, Bilal said.

“They’ve been outside because they’re outside, everywhere in this city and other cities,” she said. “But they have not been inside, doing none of that.”

Bilal said she has received backlash to her comments at a press conference in January, when she called ICE officers “fake wanna-be law enforcement.”

“Anybody that makes a stand against what’s going on around the country, as y’all can see, is being asked to resign,” she said. “I’ve been threatened. My life has been threatened.”

Advocates said Tuesday that they are pressuring elected officials throughout the city to ensure safety for immigrant residents, and applauded the legislation introduced in Philadelphia City Council last week to protect immigrant residents and strengthen the city’s “sanctuary” policy.

“I saw bills have been introduced that show our city can choose protection over fear,” Núñez said. “That’s what this moment is about, making our city safe at all levels, in our courts, in our policies, in our daily lives. … We know who the real enemy is here, and it is a fascist agency who marks certain people as disposable, with rogue agents enacting state violence on our people.”

Gabrielle Beaudry, 29, a rally attendee and a member of No ICE Philly, said the group is growing and working to organize as ICE activity is “getting worse.”

“The overreach and the violence and the brutality of ICE agents across the U.S. is disgusting and for us to pay tax dollars for masked agents to kidnap people with no due process and cart them off to detention centers is so inhumane and horrifying,” she said.