Inside the NYC courthouse where immigrants learn their fates
More than a dozen Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents wearing face masks and street clothes fanned around outside the courtroom where deportation hearings happen like clockwork. One armed agent scanned the court docket as a closed-circuit television broadcast the drama unfolding inside the courtroom.
“I’d rather be detained here for 15 years than return to my country,” a Honduras-born man was telling Immigration Judge Karen Nazaire-Francois. “I fear for my life in my country…If I return to my country, I know I will not survive.”
It was Oct. 14 on the 14th floor of New York’s Federal Immigration Courthouse. Attorneys ushered their clients in and out, their arms wrapped tightly around them or hooking arms, hoping to thwart arrests by ICE agents.
“It can be intense, depending on where you are,” an agent wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and a black neck gator told Straight Arrow News (SAN). Unlike most of his colleagues, the agent said, he does not have a military background, which could be helpful for this line of work. He had not been working at 26 Federal Plaza long.
This soaring, modernist building in downtown Manhattan is a main hub for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It’s where half of the 3,320 immigrants detained in New York City between January and July were arrested by ICE agents.
It also became the subject of the national spotlight and public outcry as the federal government’s new immigration policy has been put into practice.
Epicenter of NYC’s deportations
Americans got a rare view inside the courthouse last month when videos of violence by ICE agents went viral. Agents shoved two journalists to the floor as they tried to document an arrest in a courthouse elevator. One photographer was hospitalized because of his injuries.
That incident came days after an officer threw a mother against a wall and then onto the floor in front of her two children. In a rare move, ICE publicly reprimanded this agent. “The officer’s conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The agent was temporarily suspended but was reportedly back at work the following week.
Detention conditions in the courthouse have also caused an outcry. One person said on a video taken inside the detention area that officers treat detainees “like dogs.”
At the courthouse, elevators for the public don’t stop on the 10th floor, where immigrants are detained. It’s reported to be unsanitary and inhumane. A video showed people sleeping on thermal blankets resembling tin foil. Toilets were separated by only a waist-high wall.
On Sept. 17, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan granted a preliminary injunction requiring ICE to limit the amount of people it holds in captivity. He also ordered the agency to ensure cleanliness and to improve detainees’ access to their telephone calls.
The court did not respond to SAN regarding any changes in guidelines or rules. John Martin, the court’s public affairs officer, was furloughed during the federal government shutdown.
‘More and more aggressive’
The presence of ICE agents at this immigration courthouse has seen a major uptick this year. Many people reportedly are scared to appear for hearings, for fear they’ll be arrested on the spot by masked agents. Some say ICE’s pervasive presence is spooky.
“There weren’t any ICE agents in the very beginning, and in the past six months it’s increasing,” John Sirabella, a volunteer with the immigrant rights group New Sanctuary Coalition, told NPR. “And their strategies and their tactics have become more and more aggressive and assertive.”
Legal experts say this tactic abuses the court system. They also say posting ICE agents throughout the building puts immigrants in difficult positions, because if they turn up for the hearing, they may get arrested without ever making it to court.
The U.S. government disagrees. It says it has authority to detain anyone who is in the U.S. without legal authorization.
Inside NYC’s immigration court
In the courthouse lobby, large pictures of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance hang prominently on the wall. Across the lobby is a children’s nursery, with prams parked out front.
Along the linoleum floors, long white hallways feature flyers, such as ones encouraging people to deport themselves. “MESSAGE TO ILLEGAL ALIENS: A WARNING TO SELF-DEPORT.”
Notes hang on closed courtroom doors: “HEARING IN SESSION DO NOT DISTURB.” The press and members of the public are not allowed inside courtrooms.
“The only person allowed in is the sketch artist,” a security guard told SAN. On Tuesday, respondents walked into the courtroom, some visibly frightened. One held a newborn baby.
A court employee made sure to keep the hallway clear. “Stay on your side,” she told a photographer and a director of a German documentary crew making a film about Trump’s second term. “A woman is in there alone with no lawyer, with people who may or may not be criminals. You need to keep this hallway clear for safety.”
At the far end of the hallway, more ICE agents in ski masks clustered by the elevators.
But not all who pass through are terrified. Some immigrants are granted citizenship.
Outside on a sunny Friday afternoon, a young woman in a patriotic blue dress waved a mini American flag. She smiled for a photograph, the 41-story immigration courthouse shimmering in the background.
The post Inside the NYC courthouse where immigrants learn their fates appeared first on Straight Arrow News.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
