The Trial Court’s “Soft Diplomacy” With ICE Is Not a Strategy. It’s Surrender.
By Brooke Simone and Joshua Dankoff
Brooke Simone is an attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights and Joshua Dankoff is Director of Strategic Initiatives at Citizens for Juvenile Justice. Both advocate for the rights of immigrant communities.
The Massachusetts Trial Court recently suggested that the PROTECT Act — legislation that would protect against immigration arrests inside state courthouses without a judicial warrant — would disrupt the so-called “soft diplomacy” between state courts and ICE. This is not a strategy; it’s a surrender. And the communities bearing the cost of this capitulation can’t afford for injustice to go unanswered.
The Trial Court’s tepid approach miscalculates the moment. We are not engaged in a conventional policy disagreement with a good-faith actor. We are living in a climate of unprecedented federal overreach. The historian Timothy Snyder offers a lesson directly applicable here: do not obey in advance. Power should not be freely given by institutions that anticipate what a more repressive government will want and offer compliance without being asked. When the Trial Court proclaims it has a relationship “at a very deep level” with ICE and has established “back-channel” understandings with immigration enforcement — rather than firm legal boundaries and guardrails — it is showing the federal government what it can get away with. And ICE has been learning fast.
As if anticipatory compliance wasn’t bad enough, the Trial Court’s “soft diplomacy” doesn’t work. This is not a matter of opinion — it is established by data. According to the Massachusetts Trial Court’s own figures, ICE made 726 arrests in state courthouses across the Commonwealth from January 2025 through February 2026. Inexplicably, the Trial Court says that “soft diplomacy has kept ICE from arresting people in our courtrooms.” That is simply not true: ICE operates with impunity in our courthouses, and Trial Court employees are allowed to provide public information to ICE if requested.
Finally, ICE arrests in courthouses are an assault on the integrity of our justice system. Courts are supposed to be venues where victims seek protection and redress, witnesses speak the truth, and would-be plaintiffs vindicate their rights. But instead, Massachusetts residents are now terrified to even enter our courthouses because ICE roams the hallways. Victims and witnesses are afraid of going to court because ICE uses them as “deportation traps,” and the due process rights of defendants are short-circuited. We all suffer — regardless of citizenship status — when the premise of an open and accessible court system falls. There’s no access to justice when ICE blocks the courthouse doors.
Despite its position on “soft diplomacy,” the Trial Court later wrote a letter to a state legislator endorsing the PROTECT Act’s provision requiring judicial warrants for courthouse arrests. And they may now be updating their rules. This is a welcome position, perhaps driven by a calculation that the Trial Court did not want to be on the wrong side of legislative momentum. But it raises a serious question: Why did it take a legislative effort to get here?
The Massachusetts Trial Court can — and should have — implemented protections against ICE itself long ago. As an exercise of its state sovereign power, the Trial Court has inherent authority to place strict limits on ICE activity in and around its courthouses. Numerous other state court systems have taken a firm stand: Connecticut courts prohibited federal agents from making immigration arrests inside courthouses without a judicial warrant; Oregon courts have banned civil arrests in and around courthouse premises; New Jersey has maintained a longstanding policy against civil immigration enforcement in its courthouses. These jurisdictions did not punt to their legislatures. They acted because they understood their obligation to protect the integrity and independence of the judicial system.
Immigrant rights organizations have been demanding action at the courthouse steps — literally. The LUCE Immigrant Justice Network held seven courthouse rallies across Massachusetts in late March, and a petition seeking protection in state courthouses has gathered thousands of signatures. Lawyers for Civil Rights, Citizens for Juvenile Justice, the Public Defender Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, and other organizations have met with or queried court leadership. The call has been clear, consistent, and reasonable: we need guardrails to protect access to justice.
The Massachusetts Trial Court had communities crying for help, and it had the legal authority to act. “Soft diplomacy” is not how our legal system works. We are a system of written rules, enforceable orders, and predictable standards — not secret handshakes and quid pro quos. To again quote Timothy Snyder, “[a]nticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.” While we are heartened by legislative action through the proposed PROTECT Act, judicial restraint at this moment represents an unforced error with tragic results for our immigrant neighbors and for the rule of law.