Dallas County commissioners are seeking legal advice about how officials and departments must comply with federal immigration and deportation operations and policy.
They discussed the issue on Tuesday, but regular executive session meetings are closed the public.
Often that is when attorneys give privileged legal advice.
Commissioners wanted to know what compliance looks like if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement want to enter county facilities, like courts.
Michelle Mittelstadt with the Migration Policy Institute said government agencies, schools and employers across nationwide want to understand the boundaries of immigration enforcement in public and private spaces.
"Courthouses initially were in the sensitive locations policy," she said. "But then that was dropped some years ago and only schools, hospitals and churches remained "sensitive locations."
She said the Trump administration rescinded the memo on sensitive locations and said that locating and deporting operations would occur at the discretion of immigration agents.
"I don't believe we've heard any reporting yet that there have been operations that have taken place in these formerly sensitive locations or in courthouses."
"Most of the arrests that ICE has made going back many years now have come largely through the criminal justice pipeline. So you could see that a courthouse would be an attractive place for ICE to go find people who they know are involved in a legal proceeding, have just been convicted of a crime or something like that."
Because of some ambiguity, Dallas County officials, like officials with agencies across the country and state 鈥� including San Antonio, 鈥� requested advice to avoid violation or obstruction of deportation operations recently ordered by the White House administration.
The executive order mandates the federal customs and immigration agency to search for immigrants who have possibly broken local or U.S. laws, and deport them.
This week, the first flight carrying rounded-up people left El Paso for a deportation holding facility in Guant谩namo Bay, Cuba.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit alleging the executive order violates legal obligations to migrants seeking refuge.
The order allows U.S. border officials to deport migrants without allowing them to request asylum.
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