Samantha French was at the Maywood Courthouse in Cook County, Ill., when she noticed a group of men in plainclothes who seemed like they were looking for someone.
"I saw their attention peak when they saw someone walking toward them, and one of them very aggressively went toward this man and grabbed his wrist," says French, an assistant public defender in the county.
The man's lawyer, Rick Sotorrio, told NPR his client was facing misdemeanor charges for a domestic disturbance in the Chicago suburbs.
"His wife is there, his two kids are there, and as we're starting to leave down the hallway from the actual courtroom, there's like five or six guys standing there," Sotorrio says. "I said, 'What's going on?' And [an officer] goes, 'I work for Homeland Security. We have a warrant for his arrest.'"
Sotorrio and French say they did not see the warrant or any identification. The federal officers arrested the man, and Sotorrio says he is in Mexico. He believes he left the U.S. voluntarily.
In the months since President Trump's second term began, a tactic his administration has increasingly deployed is arresting people at immigration court as they show up for routine hearings.
But arrests like the one in Maywood — at a criminal courthouse — are also happening across the country. Many fear the criminal courthouse arrests have created a chilling effect not just for those accused of crimes, but for victims as well.
NPR spoke to more than a dozen immigration lawyers, criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors in multiple states where criminal court arrests have taken place. Some said they hear about these arrests nearly every day; others, just a few times since Trump took office again. But they all said the fear of it happening has led to growing concern around court appearances.
"It means, to me, the destruction of our judicial system," says Brendon Woods, public defender in Alameda County, Calif. "That might seem to be overdramatic to some people, but when people are coming to court, they expect to be able to litigate their case, fight their case, protect their rights, or come as a victim to court to testify against someone, without the federal government laying siege to them."
Jason Blank, a criminal defense lawyer in Florida, says one of his clients has chosen not to be present in person at his hearings. The client, a legal permanent resident, Blank says, is concerned he could be deported. Blank is attending on his behalf.
Other lawyers told NPR they worry their clients are feeling pressure to accept plea deals, so they no longer have to appear in court.
Lazaro Salazar, an immigration lawyer in Fresno County, Calif., says it's not just defendants: Immigrant victims and witnesses are afraid to appear too — to testify against someone, for instance, or get a protective order.
"I just recently spoke to somebody who was a victim of road rage," Salazar says. "The aggressor was yelling at her, claiming to call immigration."
After the man was arrested, police told the woman, who is undocumented, that she might have to testify against him in court.
"She simply is deathly afraid of having to testify. She'd rather let the whole thing go and just let bygones be bygones because she wants nothing to do with the situation," Salazar says.
This chilling effect isn't new — police leaders have been concerned for months that ICE tactics are eroding the immigrant population's trust in them. But victims and witnesses' willingness to participate in criminal court proceedings especially worries prosecutors.
"For my purposes, I want justice to happen," says Jamie Mosser, the state's attorney in Kane County, Ill. "If somebody commits a crime, I want to be able to prosecute that person in the way that we should. But I also like to see cases get resolved for victims. And if we have delayed justice, then that just negatively affects them."
Mosser says arrests at courthouses do happen, but they're usually the result of a crime happening during court proceedings.
"We've had domestic battery cases. We've had stalking cases, things that have happened in the courthouse. It's not abnormal to have something like that happen, especially when you're bringing people together in this courthouse," she says. "This is different, though, because this is more proactive, going to find individuals who are mandated to be here."
If a defendant is deported, that also makes it harder to prosecute a case, says Tim Cruz, district attorney in Plymouth County, Mass., and president of the National District Attorneys Association.
"It's all contingent upon communication between the local enforcement agencies and the federal enforcement agencies, so that now when there is a serious matter, we can have a conversation about those cases to make sure that somebody is not deported prematurely," Cruz says.
"We've been successful, at least for now in Massachusetts, in having conversations with ICE to say, 'Listen, I want to make sure that the right thing happens here. I know you do, too. And I don't think anybody wants people to get away with murder.'"
Cruz said those conversations are rare. Most defendants in the U.S. are facing misdemeanor charges, and immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than their U.S.-born counterparts.
Judges are often less inclined to speak publicly, but after criminal courthouse arrests were documented during Trump's first term, dozens of retired state and federal judges wrote a letter to Ronald Vitiello, the acting ICE director at the time.
"We know that judges simply cannot do their jobs — and our justice system cannot function effectively — if victims, defendants, witnesses and family members do not feel secure in accessing the courthouse," the judges wrote in 2018.
Officials with ICE did not respond to NPR's request for comment, but the Trump administration is fighting attempts to keep ICE agents away from court proceedings. In Minnesota, for instance, the Justice Department reportedly considered bringing criminal charges against judges and defense lawyers who requested virtual hearings to protect people from ICE arrests. And this June, the DOJ sued New York over a law that restricts ICE from arresting people in or around the state's courthouses.
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