This story was originally published on Hell Gate.
Outside of the elevator on the twelfth floor of 26 Federal Plaza on Friday afternoon, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were milling about, some with neck gaiters or face masks on, and others standing, unmasked, absentmindedly looking at their phones. When one officer realized I was taking photos of them, they told another one who was unmasked, “Hey, mask up, you’re being filmed.” On the other side of the hallway, other ICE agents were handcuffing an immigrant who had been pushed up against the wall.
ICE agents have been stationed in New York City’s three immigration courthouses in Lower Manhattan (at 290 Broadway, 26 Federal Plaza, and 201 Varick Street) for much of the past two weeks, arresting dozens of immigrants who have shown up for routine hearings for their immigration cases as part of the Trump administration’s targeting of asylum seekers.
This operation has relied on two major changes to immigration policy—one change is the expansion of a congressional statute called “expedited removal,” which allows for fast-tracked deportations. Previously, it was only used against people who had entered the country within two weeks—now, it’s been expanded to apply to people who have been here for less than two years. The other change is a reversal of a Biden-era policy that prohibited ICE agents from making arrests at “sensitive locations,” like schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses.
With these two changes in place, Department of Homeland Security prosecutors are now coordinating with ICE to set a trap for immigrants—they’re moving to dismiss people’s removal cases, in order to then arrest them and attempt to deport them through “expedited removal.”
On Friday, after the ICE agents got into an elevator and left with the immigrant they’d arrested, a private security guard motioned me over.
“Do you think these people sleep well at night?” the private security guard asked about the masked men. I said I was certain they did. The private security guards recounted people crying, screaming, and pleading for help during the past week as they were being led away by the ICE agents.
Last week, New Yorkers attempted to stop ICE vans from leaving one of the courthouses, before they themselves were arrested by the NYPD.
Rachel Levenson, an attorney for the immigrant rights group Make the Road New York, was in immigration court last week. “As a practitioner, I’m moving through this with disbelief and shock,” she told me. “This is so extreme, from both a legal perspective and one’s conscience.”
In an interview conducted on Saturday, she spoke about what she saw last week; why every available immigration attorney should flood courtrooms when court resumes this Monday; and why New Yorkers, through the sheer act of just being present in a public courthouse, can help fellow New Yorkers avoid being disappeared by ICE.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
This story was originally published on Hell Gate.
