In a sudden escalation in President Trump’s mass deportation efforts, ICE agents are snatching and detaining migrants with pending immigration court cases at lower Manhattan courthouses, a move which city officials and attorneys blasted as “utterly unlawful.”
In the past month, Department of Homeland Security attorneys have routinely moved to dismiss asylum seekers cases in court, in hopes that the judge will grant the dismissal, rendering those individuals’ asylum cases nonexistent and making them subject to expedited removal.
Federal agents have been seen sitting inside, or just outside of courtrooms, and staging themselves in the hallways to ambush and arrest these migrants as they step foot outside the courtroom.
More recently, ICE agents are detaining migrants regardless of whether the judge tossed their case or not, according to City Comptroller Brad Lander and several immigration attorneys.
“What’s happening now, is that people who clearly have status as asylum seekers, either a motion to dismiss is not being made or not being granted, they have pending asylum applications, the judge is granting them a hearing to present their credible fear,” Lander told reporters last week. “And nonetheless, ICE without any rationale whatsoever is disappearing with them. It is an utterly unlawful process.”
Lander said he observed asylum hearings at 290 Broadway on Friday, including one case where the judge gave a Guatemalan woman another hearing for her case in February 2027.
“Nonetheless, in the hallway on her way out of the courtroom, masked ICE agents detained her,” he said. “When I ask, ‘Do you plan to produce them for the February 2027 hearing? Or are you processing them for deportation, of course they refuse to answer questions.”
Lander said he also watched two brothers break down crying in the courtroom, saying “they are certain they will be killed,” as their father had been, if they were to be deported back to Columbia.
Because the pair’s private immigration attorney was a no-show, the judge granted them another hearing in February 2027. ICE agents arrested them both anyway when they left the courtroom, Lander said.
“I can’t imagine what the legal ground here could be if they were not stripped of status,” Lander said. “They have status as asylum seekers. The federal government accepted their asylum applications and a federal immigration judge granted them a hearing on those asylum applications. So what grounds there could be for their arrest and removal, I have no idea. And I’m pretty sure the ICE agents who removed them have no idea either.”
Benjamin Remy, an immigration attorney with New York Legal Assistance Group, has been at 26 Federal Plaza nearly every day since courthouse arrests began, giving legal advice to migrants on their way into court, and as they’re being hauled away by federal agents.
Remy and his NYLAG colleague, attorney Allison Cutler said they had previously seen federal agents detaining people whose cases had not been dismissed when courthouse arrests began in late May. For several weeks this appeared to be less common, but in the past week they said they have seen numerous people get detained despite having open cases.
“I tell these ICE guys, this really just boils down to getting people their day in court. The judge denies their case, that’s that. The judge grants their case, that’s that,” Remy told The News. “But people deserve to have that opportunity to go into court, present evidence, testify and let the chips fall where they may. And basically everyone we’re seeing detained is being robbed of that.”
Cutler, chimed in, emphasizing that asylum is a right.
“We are obligated under international law to hear asylum applications. If someone expresses fear of returning to their country, we must hear their asylum case,” she said. “The reason those laws were created was because of the holocaust, and the genocide, and so to avoid that again, this is what this government decided to do. And this administration is refusing to follow that.”
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Those who are detained with open asylum cases will have to fight their case from detention, often in faraway states like Texas and Louisiana, where many are shipped off to, Cutler added.
Paige Austin, an attorney with Make the Road New York said she has seen judges write detailed written decisions denying the government’s motions to dismiss in some migrants’ cases, and still witnessed ICE detain them.
“We totally think that is not legal,” Austin said plainly. “It feels like they’re just grabbing people, snatching people, even the people that can’t be removed. They’re just trying to funnel them into this system.”
Austin noted that fighting a case from detention, often across the country, becomes logistically complicated.
“What are they supposed to do? Their families in New York, right? They may have trouble affording counsel. It’s hard to gather evidence,” Austin said.
Data gathered by the American Immigration Council analyzing over 1.2 million deportation cases decided between 2007-2012 found that only 3% of detained migrants without legal representation avoided deportation, compared to 32% of detained migrants who had legal representation.
As for migrants who were never detained, 78% with legal representation avoid deportation, versus only 15% for those without representation.
Austin said she has seen many migrants decide to give up and self-deport just to avoid possible detention, despite being in the middle of a legal court process to obtain asylum.
“That includes a lot of people who remain scared to go to their country. So they’re saying, ‘I’m going to get deported, and then I’m going to flee again,'” Austin said.
When asked to explain why ICE agents are detaining migrants whose cases had not been dismissed, a DHS spokesperson did not address the question directly.
In a statement attributed to Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, they stated that most “aliens” who “illegally” entered the U.S. in the past two years are subject to expedited removals.
“Biden ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge,” the statement said. “ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal as they always should have been.”
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