Adiel Kaplan is reporting for nbcnews [dot] com a federal judge June 10, ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at courthouses in New York are illegal. The decision was rendered in a case filed by state Attorney General Letitia James and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez that sought to stop ICE from making civil immigration arrests at state courthouses. Local officials, including police chiefs and state prosecutors, have for years said that ICE operations inside courthouses have hampered their ability to investigate and prosecute crimes. James and Gonzalez argued that ICE's current courthouse arrest policy, based on a January 2018 directive, exceeded its authority. "The Court declares ICE’s policy of courthouse arrests...to be illegal," Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, wrote in the opinion, contrasting the arrests with the challenges COVID-19 has created for the court system. "It is one thing for the state courts to try to deal with the impediments brought on by a pandemic," he wrote, "and quite another for them to have to grapple with disruptions and intimidations artificially imposed by an agency of the federal government...” Read the full story at nbc news [dot] com.