ICE has detained three men outside a SoCal courthouse, raising concerns about local immigration attorneys
At least three men were arrested by federal agents outside San Bernardino County Superior Court Thursday where attorneys called for an alarming increase in extrajudicial immigration enforcement in the county.
Federal immigration agents showed up at the courthouse parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga around 9 a.m. and began arresting people as they left the building until noon, lawyers said. Witnesses told ABC7 that one man was surrounded by agents in the parking lot with his son shortly before 9:30 a.m. Video showed masked people surrounding the man, handcuffing him and putting him in the back of an SUV.
Similar arrests have taken place outside courthouses in San Bernardino and Riverside in recent months, said Lizbeth Abeln, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.
Federal agents arrested a man outside a courthouse in Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday.
(KTLA)
“We see this as a violation of their due process,” Abeln said. “It’s not like ICE is arresting them because of immigration violations. It’s trying to identify people who have had contact with law enforcement. But, in America, we have a due process that means you’re innocent until proven guilty. But in these cases, people don’t have the chance to finish their case or close it.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol were on the scene Thursday in an immigration raid and arrested three people, two of them from Columbia and one from Mexico.
Godofredo Chiquete Lopez overstayed in the United States after entering in 2007 on a tourist visa, according to Homeland Security. He was charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon that was not a firearm, a misdemeanor count of hit and run and possible convictions for causing great bodily injury to a person in connection with the 2023 incident. He pleaded not guilty to all charges, according to San Bernardino County court records.
A spokesman for Homeland Security said another person in ICE custody, Alexander Pacheco Sabogal, of Columbia, was arrested on suspicion of battery. No criminal charges have been filed against Sabogal in San Bernardino County, according to court records.
“An immigration judge ordered his removal in 2023 after he failed to appear for a hearing,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email.
Cesar Andres Mendez Garzon, who was also taken into custody on Thursday, is from Columbia and entered the United States in 2023 in Arizona. He failed to appear for a hearing in 2025 and an immigration judge ordered his removal, according to federal officials.
It is unclear why Garzon was in court Thursday. He has not been charged with a crime in San Bernardino County, according to online court records.
“We need to work with local law enforcement and intelligence, so we don’t need to have that kind of presence on the streets,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email to The Times. “Elected officials who refuse to cooperate with DHS law enforcement are wasting time, energy, and resources, while putting their constituents at risk.”
The Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, which represents immigrants in the region, said at least 33 people have been detained in or near the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse since October.
“It’s just the ones we know,” he said.
California law prohibits arrests inside courthouses, but arrests outside buildings and parking lots have occurred sporadically since the Trump administration began tightening immigration enforcement last summer.
In January 2025, ICE issued interim guidance that officials may conduct civil enforcement actions in or near courthouses “when they have credible information that leads them to believe that the target alien is or will be present in a particular location, and when that action is not prohibited by the laws of the jurisdiction where the immigration enforcement action is to be conducted.”
The bill proposed by Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) would force federal officials to have a warrant signed by a judge before they can arrest someone for a civil offense outside of state court.
Abeln said the coalition is concerned that the presence of immigration officers in courthouse parking lots will deter others — even citizens — from going to the building to hear cases or handle business like traffic tickets.
“It puts all families at risk,” he said. “Maybe they target one person, but their family is not a citizen and they are targeted whether they are on site or after. It is a security concern.”
California Chief Judge Patricia Guerrero said in a statement in July that the arrest could have a “negative impact” on the court.
“Making the courts a focus on immigration enforcement hinders, rather than helps, the administration of justice by preventing witnesses and victims from coming forward and preventing people from asserting their rights,” she said.
