After multiple federal immigration arrests inside Salt Lake City’s Matheson Courthouse this week, public defenders worry that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s interference with the criminal justice system will prevent victims from coming forward and offenders from being prosecuted.
Defense attorney Shannon Woulfe had a client detained while in state court on Feb. 10.
“I was at the lectern with this individual and the prosecutor motioned for his case to be dismissed. The court granted it. The case was dismissed,” she said. “And as we kind of turned away from the lectern, these two individuals who had been in the courtroom appeared right behind us, handcuffed him.”
The men were not wearing uniforms that identified them as law enforcement officers. Woulfe said they did not let her speak with her client as they took him to a holding cell.
The same day, attorney Melinda Dee joined a client for her first appearance in court. She took the woman aside to explain what the judge planned to do in her case.
“The bailiff asked me to talk to her in the holding cell, which is unusual, and there were already people in there,” Dee said.
When she finished speaking with her client, two men who were in the holding cell came forward, identified themselves as immigration enforcement officers, and said they were going to arrest her client, Dee said.
Dee later tracked her client using ICE’s detainee locator.
A spokesperson for Utah State Courts confirmed that ICE agents conducted arrests in court that day.
And it wasn’t a one-off. The previous day, public defender Lacey Singleton said she appeared with a client accused of a low-level misdemeanor. When the case was called, court staff approached and handcuffed her client and took him to a holding cell. Plainclothes ICE officers followed, she said.
Singleton does not know where her client was taken.
Arresting immigrants at criminal courts, which are separate from immigration courts, is not a new tactic for Homeland Security. The day after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, ICE issued new guidance on courthouse arrests. It overturned a 2021 policy that limited civil immigration arrests at courthouses to certain circumstances.
Per the interim guidance, ICE can make arrests in or near courthouses as long as local laws do not prohibit it.
A handful of similar courthouse arrests occurred in Utah in early 2025. But the number of cases this week worries Singleton. She said she’s heard from colleagues that ICE arrests are also taking place in other Utah courts.
ICE has the authority to arrest anyone who lacks legal status, regardless of whether they have been accused or convicted of a crime.
In Utah, 45% of immigrants arrested by ICE under the second Trump term, as of mid-October 2025, had no criminal conviction.
The agents’ presence in court puts attorneys in a dilemma, Singleton said. They cannot advise clients to disobey court orders and stay home, but they also don’t want to see them detained.
Singleton also has broader concerns for Utah’s criminal justice system.
She worries victims without legal status might not testify against alleged perpetrators because they fear being arrested at court. That could hurt a victim’s chances of seeing a case through to the end.
“The state is being essentially hamstrung in their abilities to prosecute cases because people are being taken before their cases are resolved,” she said.
Plus, Woulfe said, victims may lose the ability to testify against someone who is in ICE custody or outside the country.
“For some people, that process of testifying in court or at least being heard through it can be what they're seeking, right?”
A February 2025 Utah State Courts policy states that the courts “do not have the power to prevent ICE from conducting lawful enforcement actions in or around courthouses and may not interfere with ICE agents or their enforcement plans or actions.”
The guidance also says staff do not partner with ICE, but that they “ask ICE to coordinate with security personnel to ensure the arrest happens safely and securely in non-public areas of the courthouse. However, we cannot require them to do so.”
Woulfe said ICE officers use parts of the court that aren’t open to the general public, like elevators and the private garage. And in Singleton’s case, court staff, not ICE, placed her client in handcuffs.
“Now it's a little bit fuzzy, because there's a difference between not interfering and actually aiding in the process, right?” Singleton said.
Bailiffs in the Matheson Courthouse are part of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. When an outside law enforcement agency plans to make an arrest in court, their protocol has been to place an individual in handcuffs on behalf of the arresting agency, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office.
Bailiffs can also take agents of other agencies through secure areas, according to the statement.
For Singleton, the increase in courthouse arrests is scary, especially because defendants in criminal cases are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“It's just kind of horrific to watch and be able to do nothing,” she said.
ICE did not answer KUER’s questions about operations at Utah courts.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
