Federal judge bars ICE agents from arresting immigrants attending court-ordered hearings at Federal Plaza and other facilities
A federal judge has melted ICE’s ability to make non-criminal arrests inside immigration courts, including Lower Manhattan’s Federal Plaza, after a year of emotional and often violent detentions in the halls of justice.
Judge Kevin Castel issued a stay on Monday, prohibiting federal agents from arresting immigrants as they attended their legally mandated court hearings, provided they have not committed a crime. For immigration advocates, the order was a major victory in their effort to protect New Yorkers from arbitrary apprehension within Lower Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza and the adjacent 290 Broadway became a hub for ICE activity in the Big Apple.
“Every immigrant New Yorker deserves the ability to access immigration courts and navigate legal proceedings without fear of being unlawfully detained or separated from their family. ICE’s courthouse arrests have sown fear in New York’s immigrant communities, discouraging people from showing up to court and undermining trust in the legal process by targeting individuals at the moment they are complying with federal law requirements,” New York Immigration Coalition President Murad Awawdeh said. “This court order must be fully followed by ICE, the detention center at 26 Federal Plaza must finally be closed, and all New Yorkers who have been unlawfully tricked and trapped at their court appearances must be immediately reunited with their families.”
The legal stay barring ICE arrests in courts came about two months after the agency admitted in a federal court filing that the agency lacked the authority and jurisdiction to undertake immigration enforcement at immigration court facilities. That admission, however, did not stop masked agents from continuing to stalk the halls of Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway and arrest immigrants attending court hearings there, such as one apprehension witnessed on May 18, just hours before Castel’s stay came down.
Former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was arrested at Federal Plaza last year while attempting to advocate for immigrants, said the stay makes clear what ICE must do.
“ICE will have to stop arresting our immigrant neighbors on the spot when they show up to court at places like 26 Federal Plaza, 290 Broadway, and 201 Varick,” Lander said. “This is a massive win for our communities in the fight against ICE.”
For nearly a year, immigrant New Yorkers have been caught in what advocates have called a catch-22: Arrest at the hands of ICE agents even as they obeyed court orders to attend hearings regarding their applications to remain in the U.S.
Reports of the ICE operations led to a rapid decline in immigrants attending their hearings out of fear that they would be the next caught in the dragnet. Yet in doing so, they increase their own risk of losing their visa status and being subject to deportation — something which an ICE supervisor seemed to acknowledge during a tirade inside the halls of 26 Federal Plaza last week.
“Not many come anymore. That’s just another reason for us to pick them up off the streets,” he said.
Melissa Chua, Director of the Immigrant Protection Unit at NYLAG, says she is hopeful the order barring ICE arrests at courts will mean that families will no longer have to make the choice of violating a court order and remaining in the shadows just to stay in this country.
“This ruling is a relief to the hundreds of immigrants with future hearings and check-ins at 26 Federal Plaza who will no longer fear following the rules by going to their hearings and routine check-ins,” Chua said. “Even with this ruling, our advocates will continue to stand at the ready because the Trump administration may no longer be able to use courthouses as immigrant dragnets, but will continue to flagrantly violate people’s due process rights in our streets, at workplaces, and in public places across the state and our nation.”
Over the last year, amNewYork has documented everything from tearful family separations that left children weeping as their parents were pulled away, and a mother callously thrown to the ground as her husband was whisked out of sight, to a physical attack on the free press.
In a statement to the New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security expressed defiance over the court order, referred to undocumented immigrants they arrest as “illegal aliens,” and confidence that it would “ultimately be vindicated in this case.”
