Left inset: Jennifer Joma and Lauren Morrow. Right inset: Utah court clerk Jennifer Joma allegedly taking an immigrant by the hand toward a back door of the Logan City Municipal Justice Court in Logan (U.S. Department of Justice). Background: The Utah courthouse where Jennifer Joma and Lauren Morrow work as clerks (KUTV/YouTube).
Two Utah court clerks have been dubbed “anti-ICE vigilantes” by the U.S. Justice Department after they were allegedly caught “sneaking” undocumented immigrants out the back door of their courthouse before federal agents could arrest and deport them.
Jennifer Joma, 27, and Lauren Morrow, 26, were captured on surveillance video waving and smiling at a courthouse camera — with Morrow using “her middle finger to flip off the camera” — as they helped at least three immigrants “escape out a back door,” according to court documents filed by the DOJ.
Federal prosecutors say the state court clerks “abused their position of trust and took the law into their own hands” by helping the immigrants evade “lawful arrest” by ICE at the Logan City Municipal Justice Court in Logan.
“After they overheard that ICE was at the courthouse to arrest someone, they improperly accessed court databases to determine who was not born in the United States,” a DOJ detention filing says. “They then snuck every suspected illegal alien who was at the courthouse out a back door, where ICE, who was waiting in the parking lot for their target to leave the building, could not see them.”
Joma allegedly arranged to meet three of the individuals the pair was helping outside the courthouse and to pick them up in her car. “She then drove them away and dropped them off somewhere else so ICE could not arrest any of them,” the detention filing says.
The court clerks allegedly did not know who ICE intended to arrest, “nor did they care why ICE wanted to arrest them,” according to the DOJ. “Acting as self-appointed anti-ICE vigilantes, [Morrow and Joma] and others took it upon themselves to obstruct immigration proceedings and the lawful enforcement of United States immigration laws,” the detention filing says.
“Whatever [Morrow and Joma”s] personal feelings regarding immigration policies or laws, this was a crime,” the filing concludes.
The alleged scheme unfolded on April 9 while the clerks were working at the Logan City Municipal Justice Court that afternoon, according to the DOJ. An ICE officer had entered the courthouse around 1:25 p.m. with an arrest warrant for a person who was in a court hearing. A bailiff escorted the officer to a secure area to wait, and then the officer exited to speak with Morrow at a clerk’s window.
Moments later, the ICE officer went outside and waited in his car for “his target” to leave the courthouse before attempting the arrest, per the DOJ.
“After Joma and Morrow learned that ICE was there to arrest someone, they sprang into action,” the detention filing says. “They and others at the courthouse immediately began taking actions to try to figure out whom ICE was there to arrest. Another clerk in the courtroom helped them. This clerk used both the courtroom phone and texts on a cellphone to continue to contact Morrow and to keep Morrow updated on the court proceedings. This clerk did so in open court, without the judge or the bailiff noticing what was going on.”
To identify the individuals that ICE might be there to arrest, federal prosecutors say Morrow and Joma “decided to misuse court databases” to search for the court attendees’ criminal histories “to determine the alienage of everyone who was on the court docket.”
They allegedly began searching the criminal histories that reflect a person’s country of birth to help identify “which illegal alien ICE intended to arrest,” according to the DOJ’s detention filing. Joma was captured on surveillance video taking an individual’s hand and walking them through a security area and out a back door to the outside of the courthouse, “where ICE could not see anyone leave the building,” the filing says.
Joma and Morrow led at least three undocumented immigrants past metal detectors and into the secure clerk’s area to help them escape, according to the DOJ.
Another ICE officer who was at the courthouse to make an arrest eventually returned inside and went to the clerk’s window to see if his target was still in the building. He asked Morrow if she knew how “the targeted illegal alien could get out if ICE was watching the door the whole time,” according to federal prosecutors.
“Morrow did not tell him that she and Joma had led four aliens out the back door of the courthouse. Nor did she tell him that Joma had driven three aliens away in her car out of sight of ICE,” the detention filing concludes.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) launched an investigation, leading to Joma and Morrow’s arrests. They were each charged with conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens, harboring illegal aliens, and obstruction of proceedings before departments and agencies. Joma is also charged with “transporting illegal aliens.”
Both clerks have pleaded not guilty and been released from custody. They have reportedly resigned from their jobs and are due back in court on July 2.
