A day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided a courthouse in downtown Charlottesville and detained two men without explanation, the city’s Court Square was flooded with protesters demanding answers.
At the same time, the FBI’s Richmond office confirmed its involvement in statewide immigration operations — though officials would not say if the federal agency was involved in the recent raid in Charlottesville.
Two prominent retired public officials came out Wednesday to protest the ICE raid.
“I’m infuriated,” former Charlottesville Mayor Virginia Daugherty told The Daily Progress outside the county courthouse. “The local officials should have stopped it.”
Hoisting a sign reading “Uphold due process,” Daugherty was one of roughly 150 people who gathered on Court Square. She was joined by another former Charlottesville mayor, Kay Slaughter.
“My poster says, ‘No seizure without warrants,’” Slaughter told The Daily Progress while looking upon her hand-scrawled message. “They’ve got to have due process before just seizing people and carrying them away.”
Video of Tuesday’s raid shows three men dressed in street clothes — one masking his face with a balaclava — handcuffing another man as he emerges from Albemarle County General District Court.
The three men never display badges or arrest warrants, despite the pleas of two women seen in the video attempting to prevent the arrest. Those women are then threatened with arrest themselves.
Albemarle County Sheriff Chan Bryant, who oversees law enforcement operations at the courthouse, said Wednesday that the officers showed proper identification to bailiffs prior to the arrests.
“I want to be clear to the citizens of Albemarle County that the safety and security of the citizens and its courts are the top priority of our office,” Bryant said in a statement. “At no time was this a raid of the courthouse.”
Bryant said the three men making the arrest showed their federal credentials, including badges, and the proper paperwork to bailiffs on their way into the building.
“Which would be the same practice whether it be Albemarle or Charlottesville police, state agencies or federal agencies,” Bryant said.
Because the Albemarle County Courthouse is a public building, Bryant said that the only people who can prohibit entry are the judges within, and no such court order appears to have been produced. The Daily Progress inquired with Bryant’s office whether the man seen in the video wearing a balaclava would be charged with a crime, seeing as wearing a mask to obscure one’s identity in a public place is a Class 6 felony in Virginia. She did not respond.
Many of those who attended Wednesday’s protest in Court Square said they want to know if local law enforcement agencies are cooperating with federal immigration officials.
Albemarle County Police Chief Sean Reeves said his department was not involved in the Tuesday raid.
“I can confirm that ACPD officers were not involved in the federal enforcement action at the courthouse on April 22, 2025,” he said in a statement issued to The Daily Progress. “ACPD does not inquire into the immigration status of individuals, including victims and witnesses. Our focus is on building trust with members of the community to ensure public safety. While ACPD may collaborate with federal partners on criminal investigations—such as those involving violent crimes or exploitation—immigration enforcement falls within the jurisdiction of federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
But one local lawyer says that even if Albemarle County police weren’t involved in Tuesday’s operation, it doesn’t mean they aren’t involved in others.
Earlier this year, an Albemarle County police detective named Roberto Figueroa, assigned to the department’s special victims unit, was named “detective of the year” by the police department for his “unparalleled dedication and professionalism in handling sensitive investigations.”
But according to immigration attorney Tanishka Cruz, who represents a minor immigrant child, a recent phone call she placed to Figueroa cast doubt on that designation.
Cruz said she received a call from the child’s mother because Figueroa’s business card was allegedly left at the minor’s residence. Cruz said when she dialed Figueroa’s number on April 14, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, answered.
“I was not expecting a federal agent to be on the other side of the call,” Cruz told The Daily Progress.
As recently reported by the Washington Post, an array of federal investigative agencies including HSI and the FBI have recently been drafted to conduct welfare checks to prevent child abuse and sex trafficking.
“They’re assuring people that no one’s being arrested in this quote-unquote welfare check,” said Cruz. “But to me, it’s just pretext; I see this as a pipeline to enforcement.”
Cruz contends that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, appears to being running the initiative to contact minors, and her concerns were heightened by her attempt to contact Figueroa.
“These officers are showing up with a litany of questions,” she said, “including, ‘Who paid for your travel to the united states?’”
Cruz said that when she tried to comply with the agent’s request for a meeting, she was told that her law office wouldn’t suffice, that the meeting must be conducted at the minor’s residence.
“The DHS does not care about the children’s welfare,” said Cruz. “To me it’s a fishing expedition, a warrantless way of gathering information that will be used for enforcement purposes.”
The FBI’s Richmond office confirmed with The Daily Progress on Wednesday that it is assisting ICE in its operations in Virginia.
“FBI Richmond is assisting our partners at Immigration and Customs Enforcement with enforcement operations across the state of Virginia,” the office said in a prepared statement.
Meanwhile, the manner of Tuesday’s detention continues to draw concern. Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley said he has launched an investigation.
“I am grateful that no one was hurt in this operation,” Hingeley told The Daily Progress via email, “but I am also greatly concerned that arrests carried out in this manner could escalate into a violent confrontation, because the person being arrested or bystanders might resist what appears on its face to be an unlawful assault and abduction.”
Charlottesville’s delegation to the General Assembly in Richmond is also demanding answers.
Democratic Del. Katrina Callsen announced on X Wednesday that she and state Sen. Creigh Deeds had filed a public records request with the county, asking for:
Albemarle County police correspondence referencing Homeland Security or ICE.Body-worn camera footage from law enforcement officers working in or around the Albemarle County Courthouse at the time of the raid.Albemarle County police correspondence referring to “unaccompanied minors” or “immigrant minors.”Albemarle County Courthouse surveillance footage from the day of the raid.Albemarle County police correspondence including the phrase “welfare check” or referring to noncriminal investigations involving unaccompanied and immigrant minors. Correspondence between Albemarle County agencies and officers referring to the county’s relationship with federal immigration authorities.Albemarle County police records or correspondence referring to Virginia’s mask laws.And all Albemarle County records referring to the parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allow Homeland Security to delegate certain immigration enforcement functions to state and local law enforcement officers.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine expressed shock that one of the arresting officers Tuesday was wearing a “ski mask.”
“Particularly in settings like courthouses, which are staffed by armed officers,” the Virginia Democrat told The Daily Progress in an email, “it’s important that law enforcement officers are clearly identified to help avoid misunderstandings that could lead to officer-on-officer fire.”
An eyewitness to the arrest caught on camera Tuesday said no warrant was ever shown to the man being detained.
The American Civil Liberties Union questions that approach.
“Even if the sheriff says the bailiffs saw paperwork, the terrified public who saw yesterday’s sudden, violent detainment have no way of knowing who these masked men were,” ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer told The Daily Progress in an email. “Courthouses are places where crime survivors, witnesses, and everyone should feel safe and secure, but ICE’s campaign of intimidation and secrecy has the opposite effect.”
One person protesting outside the Albemarle County Courthouse Wednesday was Charlottesville parent Natalie Aviles, who noted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s late February executive order directing Virginia State Police and Department of Corrections officers to assist ICE in its operations. Aviles is worried that the order could get extended to local police, including school resource officers.
On March 27, the Charlottesville School Board voted, after a five-year hiatus, to return SROs to city schools.
“We want to know if they are going to get deputized by ICE to enforce immigration in our city schools,” Aviles told The Daily Progress. “A lot of us have really important questions, and we want the answers.”
Another protester, Peter Griesar, who operates the locally based Brazos Tacos restaurants, said that ICE detentions require too many men and resources to significantly reduce the number of people in the country without legal paperwork. A 2022 estimate by the Pew Research Center put that number at 11 million.
“They’ll never accomplish what they want, even in 20 or 40 or 50 years,” Griesar told The Daily Progress. “And so it just seems like what they’re doing is just being cruel for no reason.”
Neither ICE nor Homeland Security responded to Daily Progress inquiries regarding the safety and whereabouts of the two men detained Tuesday. Jailhouse records show they were taken to the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office in Harrisonburg before being transferred to “another facility.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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