WARNING

California Judge to ICE: Stop ‘Stalking’ Courthouses

Tells Sessions it’s undermining judiciary’s “ability to provide equal access to justice.”

The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Thursday accusing federal immigration authorities of “stalking” local courthouses. She asked that the federal government immediately stop detaining undocumented immigrants at courthouses in California. “Enforcement policies that include stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom pose no risk to public safety, are neither safe nor fair,” she wrote. “They not only compromise our core value of fairness but they undermine the judiciary’s ability to provide equal access to justice.” Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE’s Western regional office, told NBC News on Thursday that the agency had no comment on Cantil-Sakauye’s letter, but defended the practice of detaining undocumented people at courthouses.