The charges against the legal observer detained at Denver Immigration Court have been dropped, the ACLU of Colorado announced.

“We are pleased to see that these baseless and ludicrous charges have been dismissed,” Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement. “They never should have been brought in the first place and were a transparent attempt to intimidate observers and keep the public from learning what is happening in our immigration courts.

“Without them, the public may never know what ICE and the government are doing to our immigrant neighbors.”

The legal observer was detained and handcuffed on June 17 after watching the arrest of an “immigrant father,” according to a press release.   

The legal observer, whom the ACLU did not name, described witnessing federal agents slamming the immigrant into a counter and pulling his wife by the hair “as she screamed and cried for them to let her husband go.”

“While I watched this gruesome attack, a federal officer grabbed me from behind and slammed me against a wall,” the court observer said in a statement.

In July, the ACLU of Colorado sent a letter to Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Matthew W. Kaufman of Denver Immigration Court urging he keep proceedings open to the public. The letter highlighted several concerning practices by federal agents, private security contracts and court staff, including denying access to attorneys advising clients, prohibiting legal observers from taking notes or denying entry altogether.

“These restrictions function to significantly obstruct public access to immigration proceedings, in contravention of the First Amendment, federal law, and Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR)’s own policies,” Macdonald and Emma Mclean-Riggs, senior staff attorney, wrote Kaufman.

Officials with the Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment.

Kaufman did not respond to the ACLU’s letter.

Shortly after President Donald Trump assumed office, he lifted a longstanding ban on arrests in sensitive locations, which include schools, churches, hospitals and courthouses.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested immigrants appearing for hearings in immigration courts across the country.

Mclean-Riggs said she was aware of two legal observers arrested in Denver Immigration Court. Only one charged.

These arrests raise concerns about what’s happening inside immigration courthouses and how legal observers are being treated, the organization has alleged.

A lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the EOIR have engaged in a coordinated effort to detain noncitizens who appear for hearings in immigration courts nationwide.

The suit is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.

Trump promised on the campaign that he would conduct a massive deportation effort, amidst growing fears of the notorious Venezuelan prison gang that took over three apartment complexes in Aurora.

The ACLU of Colorado also has sued the Trump administration over ICE’s warrantless arrests as part of a broader effort to detain immigrants living in the United States without legal status. A federal judge earlier this week granted a preliminary injunction in that case.