SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Dilraj Shoker followed the rules.

He has a work permit, said he doesn’t have a criminal record, and filed an application to receive political asylum from his native India.

Even so, Shoker was unsettled when he walked into the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento near the state Capitol, for a hearing earlier this month. Federal authorities started detaining people who showed up at immigration courthouses across the country as part of the Trump administration’s effort to ramp up deportations.

Shoker knew he was taking a risk being there.

“I feel unsafe, but I have to come here,” Shoker told The Sacramento Bee, as he stood near elevators in the building where some people have been detained. “If I don’t show up, I’m going through removal proceedings.”

Hundreds of immigrants with court dates in Sacramento have faced a nerve-wrenching decision in recent weeks: Do they come to their hearings knowing federal authorities could take them into custody? Or skip them, leading a judge to order their deportations?

The administration said the courthouse detainments are about “implementing the rule of law,” and part of an effort to swiftly remove people from the country who don’t have a valid reason to stay.

For President Donald Trump, part of that enforcement has included deploying 4,000 troops with the National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines to parts of Los Angeles to quell protests against ongoing immigration raids there and around the state.

This escalation has added anxiety for people told to appear at Sacramento’s court, many of whom, like Shoker, said they are just trying to follow the correct procedure to stay in the U.S.

On Tuesday, Shamsher Malhi was nervous but said showing up to the hearing was about doing what he needed to do to become a citizen. He is applying for asylum from India.

“You have to come,” he said.

Still, doing so can also have serious consequences.

Heavy presence

On Wednesday at the immigration court in Sacramento, two men were handcuffed and taken to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office after attending their morning hearings.

More than eight men in plainclothes, who appeared to be federal authorities, were stationed around different floors of the building, which is home to other government administration offices.

The men’s presence was a reminder that the Trump administration is emboldened to continue its aggressive approach to deportations, and not backing down despite sharp criticism, waves of volunteers watching over court hearings and protests against immigration arrests across the state.

It also showcased the ease with which officers can detain people.

The building’s largely nondescript design and gray color make its look no different from the other government offices along Capitol Mall. Immigration hearings are held on its fourth and fifth floors, both of which feature long hallways and waiting rooms where Trump administration signs now tell immigrants to consider self-deporting.

Its layout, though, helps with immigration enforcement.

In the ICE office, on the first floor, a steady flow of immigrants wait daily for check-in appointments in a small waiting room. A clerk in the office declined to comment, or make someone from the agency available to comment, when approached by a reporter.

In San Francisco, immigrants who are detained after their court hearings are taken by vehicle to a nearby ICE office — a much more public display of enforcement

On Wednesday, when the plainclothes men detained two men leaving their court hearings, they were able to quickly ride down an elevator and whisk the detainees away into the ICE office in minutes, with minimal visibility and spectacle.

Men in long cargo pants and T-shirts were back again on Thursday morning. After a hearing, a few of the men led a man away down a hallway while others prevented a Bee photographer and volunteers from the activist organization NorCal Resist from following them.

It was at least the eighth person who has been detained at Sacramento’s court in recent weeks, according to attorneys and reporting from The Bee.

‘A lot of people try to do the right thing’

Kamalpreet Chohan is one of several attorneys who provides free legal advice to immigrants at the courthouse. Earlier this month, she gave a clear warning to an undocumented couple who was in the building because their 8-year-old daughter, who was also not lawfully in the country, had a hearing.

It was dangerous for them to be there, Chohan said through a Spanish interpreter,“because ICE has been appearing at immigration courts.”

Children who come to the country unlawfully and are taken into custody by immigration authorities without a parent or guardian also are required to appear in court. Federal law allows them to have access to a lawyer but does not require that they be provided one.

“It’s important to tell folks so they are prepared” and bring someone with them, the attorney told The Bee, after the couple had left. So, if they are detained, “they don’t just disappear and no one knows where they are.”

Many of the immigrants who recently came to court showed up on their own. But some were accompanied by a pastor, volunteer or family member.

Brittney Winzler was there as a friend of a woman who had a hearing Tuesday. While her friend was in a courtroom, Winzler tried to soothe the woman’s wailing baby, who was born only a few months ago.

Winzler said her friend was anxious about being deported and separated from the baby, who was born in the U.S. Winzler said her own father was deported to Mexico when she was a child.

Although she had not specifically heard about the recent detainments in Sacramento, Winzler felt they were wrong.

“A lot of people try to do the right thing,” Winzler said. “It’s damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Not all immigrants who showed up to Sacramento’s court said they were fearful.

Pedro Inacio, who is seeking asylum from Angola, was aware of the courthouse detainments. But said his faith in God gave him comfort. Beyond that, he felt a responsibility to respect the rules of the U.S. if he wanted to stay.

“That’s why I came here, I’m not afraid,” Inacio said. A judge told him to return to court in a few months.

“I put all the situation in God’s hands,” he said, before leaving the building.

‘A mockery of any process’

The courthouse hallway was nearly empty on June 5 when a Russian-speaking man stepped out of the bathroom. Moments earlier, an immigration judge had told him he was free to leave and ordered him to return to her courtroom in three weeks.

He was alone and started walking down a long hallway. Two men in T-shirts, who had been loitering for hours, followed him.

They caught up to him and joined him on the elevator heading down. When its doors opened, the Russian-speaker was approached by at least two other men.

The small group quickly escorted him to the ICE office, opened up a locked door and brought him inside.

It was over in only a few minutes. Penny Leff, along with a reporter from The Bee, was one of only a few people who even saw it happen.

Leff is one of many NorCal Resist volunteers who have accompanied immigrants to their court hearings, staked out hallways and anxiously paced around the courthouse closely watching out for anyone who could be an ICE agent.

“I’m glad that we’re here watching,” Leff said.

She had talked with the plainclothes men as they stood around before taking the immigrant into custody. Neither wore badges or anything that could identify them with ICE. One said to her: “As long as nothing crazy happens, I just get to hang out,” while he played Solitaire on his phone.

The other told Leff that he was waiting for his attorney to show up, as if he was like the other immigrants waiting for his case.

Leff wasn’t buying it. She closely watched and trailed the men.

In an interview while she waited, Leff said paying people to wait around at courthouses to detain people was a waste of money.

“I can just guess that it makes immigrants in the process not even want to go to their scheduled hearing,” Leff said. “And that just makes a mockery of any process we may have.”

The recent detentions have frustrated immigration attorneys who feel they are eroding people’s due process rights and putting lawyers into a bind.

“We can’t tell them not to go, because they will be breaking the law,” attorney Adem Balikci said before a recent hearing. “But we also have to tell them there’s a risk.”

Balikci is based in Sacramento, but had a client in Santa Ana who recently had an immigration court hearing run long. The client did not want to come back again and ultimately did not come to the follow up hearing.

“He didn’t show up because he was terrified,” Balikci said.

The judge ordered his client to be deported.

On another recent day in Sacramento, a Russian man, who declined to provide his name out of concern for his safety from officials in his home country, decided to show up to his recent hearing in Sacramento. But he was breathing heavily, unsure of what courtroom to go into and worried about what would happen to him once he found the right one.

He was not aware that a man had been detained only a few hours earlier in Sacramento’s court. Yet he had seen on the internet that people could be taken into custody for showing up to their hearings.

Later that afternoon, he walked out of the courthouse on his own. His sense of relief, though, would only last for so long.

The judge told him to return for a hearing in a few months if he didn’t find an attorney. The man knew his fate could be different the next time around. And that he had a long road to the judge approving his asylum case.

“I feel like it’s a won battle,” he said, using a translation application on his phone, “but it’s not a won war.”

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