Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in plain clothes showed up to the Durham County Courthouse on Wednesday morning.
By 9:28 a.m., immigrant advocacy group Siembra NC had a warning up on Facebook. By 11:00 a.m., about 20 people—including county commission chair Nida Allam, city council member Javiera Caballero, and former city council member Jillian Johnson—clustered outside the entrance with signs in English and Spanish to warn people that ICE may still be around.
Allam told INDY that most of the officers appeared to have left after the person they were looking for didn’t show up for his hearing.
“This is a direct threat to the safety and dignity of our communities,” Allam said at an afternoon press conference alongside Caballero and Durham school board member Natalie Beyer. “Courthouses should be a place where people can seek justice, not where they’re hunted down by federal agents.”
Details about the agents and their intended target were limited on Wednesday, but AnnMarie Breen, the Durham sheriff’s public information officer, confirmed to INDY that the sheriff’s department was aware of ICE agents at the courthouse that morning.
“When someone comes into the courthouse that is law enforcement and is armed, we do check identification at security,” Breen said.
Sheriff Clarence Birkhead was elected in 2018 on a promise to not cooperate with the first Trump administration’s deportation program. That has gotten more difficult legally, both nationally and statewide, in the second Trump administration.
On inauguration day, Trump rolled back a so-called “protected area” policy that had protected areas like churches and schools from immigration enforcement. The administration also authorized ICE to carry out enforcement in or near courthouses, which had previously been discouraged under the Biden administration.
The North Carolina legislature passed a law in 2024 that forces sheriffs to notify ICE if they take custody of anyone who ICE has a “detainer” for, though that was not at play in this Durham case. The legislature is expected to vote next week on whether or not to override governor Josh Stein’s veto of HB 318, which would mandate that sheriffs hold detainees who are in the US illegally for at least 48 hours after they would normally be released from jail so ICE can pick them up.
The sheriff’s office declined to elaborate on policies or procedures that deputies follow when ICE agents show up at the Durham courthouse, where the agency manages security operations.
“We have security in place at the courthouse in verifying that people that come in are law enforcement. And beyond that, we’re not going to discuss specific security procedures, but there are procedures in place,” Breen told INDY. “The Durham County sheriff’s office follows all laws set out by the North Carolina General Assembly in regards to notifications to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The county, after being labeled a “sanctuary” by the Trump administration, has often used that compliance line, especially as the rogue administration has threatened to pull jurisdictions’ federal funding and even nationalized the California National Guard during anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles this spring.
“To be clear, neither the Board nor the Sheriff’s Office has taken any action that could be reasonably interpreted as interfering with or refusing cooperation with federal immigration enforcement,” the sheriff and the county commission said in a joint statement last month.
Earlier this year, ICE arrested 11 people in raids in Durham.
Reddit and community groups have also teemed with false alarms—a Siembra representative said on Wednesday that 90 percent of reports they receive of possible ICE sightings “couldn’t be confirmed,” but that community members who want to help should stay vigilant and follow Siembra’s official channels.
Meanwhile on X, the NCGOP characteristically raged against Durhamites for exercising their right to assemble at the public courthouse (“Chair of the Durham County Commission attempting to dox ICE agents for doing their job … Shameful.”)
By the time the agents left the courthouse on Wednesday, flyers were circulating for an anti-ICE protest downtown on Wednesday night and Durhamites were already preparing to gather at the courthouse Thursday morning in case agents showed up again.
“To our immigrant and refugee communities, we know you’re scared,” Caballero said at the press conference. “You have a right to be scared, but Durham residents will always stand up and defend you.”
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].