What Do You Do When ICE Shows Up at Your Performance Venue?
The Marlowsphere (Blog 167)
On August 11, 2025, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) mounted a 75-minute Zoom webinar for its members and interested parties. The subject was both sensitive and timely ─ Planning for safety and compliance: Live venues and new immigration realities.
Clearly, this was a subject in response to the eight-months long campaign by the current White House administration to purge the United States of illegal and undocumented immigrants. The organization spearheading this policy is ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The five-member APAP panel presenting content included three lawyers with deep backgrounds in immigration issues and two high-level executives at prominent performance venues. The content was engrossing, compelling, and specific. On the panel were:
Matthew Covey, Attorney-at-law, founding board member of Tamizdat, a Brooklyn-based NGO committed to legal research, education, and advocacy regarding US-bound artist mobility and visa issues. Covey served as panel moderator.
Julie Mason Groob, New York City Center, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer
Sarah Rosen, The Joseph Papp Public Theatre, Senior Director of Human Resources at The Public Theater
Rex Chen, Attorney, is the supervising immigration lawyer at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. From 2019-2025, he was the immigration director for nonprofit legal services provider Legal Services NYC. Chen won the 2024 American Immigration Lawyers Association award for advancing the practice of immigration law.
Bruce E. Buchanan, Labor Lawyer, at the law firm Littler, counsel’s employers on immigration compliance issues, conducts internal I-9 audits, represents employers in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) inspections and audits, Ihttp://Sat, Aug 30 at 7:33 PM https://www.littler.com/people/bruce-buchananmmigrant and Employee Rights (IER)/Department of Justice investigations, E-Verify issues, and employment-based visas.
The overall message? Prepare, prepare, prepare.
At the head of the webinar Matthew Covey gave a brief on how the State Department is making it increasingly difficult for, in this context, artists to get visas to travel to the United States.
Looking ahead to APAP’s January 2026 annual meeting at New York City’s Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue, the question has to be posed: a significant number of exhibitors and artists are international—from Central and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. How will the State Department’s expanding policy to make it increasingly difficult to secure a visa impact these exhibitors and artists? Some exhibitors already have representatives on the ground, such as the Japan Foundation located in New York City. But these are the exceptions.
What of the rest? How many international exhibitors and artists will be thwarted in their need to attend APAP 2026 by the State Department’s bureaucracy, never mind the ever-present threat of an ICE contingent showing up unannounced at the three-floor exhibit hall?
Over and over, the point was made by the panelists—each performance venue needs to train its employees, from the ticket taker to the high-level administrator, in anticipation of an ICE contingent showing up.
ICE’s countrywide operations, sometimes illegal, are reported daily in the media. Many are caught up in its net and sent out of the country. Men, women, singles, parents, students—it does not matter.
ICE’s actions are sometimes presented as having legal authority when it has no such authority. They have on occasion shown up with weapons in an attempt to intimidate junior staff.
A good portion of the webinar was spent on what ICE’s authority is to enter a venue and “detain” an individual of alleged illegal or undocumented status. The following point was made:
A judicial warrant is a court order issued by a judge, authorizing an arrest, search, or seizure based on probable cause and providing strong legal authority, especially for entry into private property. In contrast, an administrative warrant is issued by a federal agency, such as ICE, and is signed by an officer, not a judge. Administrative warrants typically serve regulatory purposes, are based on a lesser standard than probable cause, and do not grant the authority to enter private property without consent or another exception to the Fourth Amendment.
Often enough, the panel members pointed out, ICE enters a space without judicial authority. At the same time, untrained, uneducated employees seeing the words “ICE/Police” on the backs of ICE personnel make the erroneous assumption they do have that kind of authority. The further point is a performance venue—whether for music, dance, or theatre—is private property; while the lobby might be considered a public space, the other areas of the performance venue are not.
Very generally speaking, the following is offered:
To prepare for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) visit, it is crucial to know your rights and have a plan for a home, workplace, or public encounter.
Your actions, or lack thereof, can significantly impact your legal situation. Immigration rights organizations emphasize the importance of remaining silent, not opening your door without a proper warrant, and having an emergency plan.
To reiterate, the panelists’ central message was: prepare, prepare, prepare. When and if ICE shows up and there is no plan, that is too late.
Resources for Organizations to Prepare and Create A Plan:
National Immigration Law Center
Immigration Enforcement at Work Toolkit Sample ICE Workplace Policies and Preparedness Plan
Eugene Marlow, Ph.D. © 2025