A federal court hearing in Ohio on Monday heard how fear of immigration arrests inside a courthouse nearly kept the mother of a murdered 13-year-old Columbus boy away from the sentencing of his killers, in testimony at the centre of the Trump administration's lawsuit over courthouse-arrest rules in Franklin County.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Carl Aveni testified as a witness for the Franklin County Municipal Court, the court the Justice Department sued in August. Aveni described a February 5, 2026 sentencing hearing in his own court, in the same courthouse complex, at which three men were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy who was walking home from a local recreation centre. Aveni said the victim's mother did ultimately appear and gave a sad and tearful victim-impact statement — a statement Ohio law guarantees victims' families the right to deliver before sentencing — but the hearing was delayed for 90 minutes while relatives in the courtroom tried to convince her that coming to the courthouse would not get her deported. The day before that hearing, he noted, ICE agents had arrested an undocumented immigrant who had appeared in the same court building complex for a misdemeanour traffic offence, according to the Columbus Dispatch reporting cited in the testimony.

The case turns on the Municipal Court's Rule 2.10, adopted earlier this year, which provides that no individual shall be subject to a civil arrest while present in the courthouse for a court proceeding or other lawful court business, with an exception for arrests carried out under a judicial warrant. In its complaint, filed August 25, the Justice Department argues the rule is preempted by the Constitution's Supremacy Clause: federal immigration law allows ICE officers to arrest using administrative warrants issued by immigration officials, and in some circumstances without a warrant at all, so a local court cannot impose a judicial-warrant requirement. The complaint says that since the rule took effect, ICE has made no civil immigration arrests at the court and has had to devote additional personnel, surveillance, vehicles, equipment and overtime to arrests elsewhere, which it calls less predictable and riskier than arrests in a screened courthouse.

At Monday's hearing, the two sides pressed opposite arguments, according to Signal Ohio's reporting. Lawyers for the Trump administration argued courthouses are one of the safest settings for immigration arrests because everyone entering is screened for weapons. Lawyers for the Municipal Court argued that making arrests in its building amounts to illegally commandeering state court resources to enforce federal laws. Supporters of the limits say they protect due process by ensuring victims, witnesses and defendants are not deterred from attending court. No decision in the case was reported from Monday's hearing. For immigrant and diaspora families in Ohio — including Punjabi families in Columbus — the ruling, when it comes, will decide whether a trip to court for a hearing, a testimony or a family member's sentencing can also carry the risk of a civil immigration arrest in the building. (Sources: Signal Ohio / Signal Akron and Signal Cincinnati, October 20, 2026, reporting Monday's federal court hearing; U.S. Department of Justice complaint, Case 2:26-cv-01025, filed August 25, 2026, justice.gov.)