How Trump and ICE are Weaponizing Courthouses

U.S. immigration courts are supposed to be sites of justice. They should be a refuge where people can make their case, before an impartial judge, to stay in the U.S.

But now, the Trump administration has begun weaponizing courthouses and turned them into another tool for mass deportations. Inside, masked federal agents lurk, waiting to apprehend and terrorize their next victims – those who have dutifully shown up for their mandatory court hearings. Without warning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents spring into action to separate parents from their children and spouses from one another as a climate of fear takes hold in the courthouse hallways.

These agents have caused scenes of chaos, tears, and heartbreak as they handcuff and detain immigrants who are trying to play by the rules of America’s byzantine immigration laws.

Chaos in Courthouses

In an unprecedented campaign, ICE agents – often in plain clothes, masked, armed, and wearing no identifying tags – have been very busy inside New York courthouses. They sit in on immigration proceedings in courtrooms, coordinate with agents waiting in the hallways, and swarm, grab, and arrest immigrants just as they are leaving their hearings.

Sometimes, ICE agents don’t try to confirm the identity of the person they are arresting and end up trying to detain the wrong individual. Sometimes, the arrests are so violent that ICE agents injure immigrants and their family members as screams for help fill the halls.

Unsurprisingly, many immigrants who are arrested after their hearings are wholly unprepared. They haven’t brought important prescription medication, arranged for childcare or elder care, or even given apartment or car keys to family members. Many others who have heard of these detentions at courthouses have become too scared to go to court.

As ICE continues its relentless campaign of arrests at immigration court, immigrants face an inescapable catch-22: they can show up to their court date and risk getting snatched by ICE and face squalid conditions in detention. Or they can miss their hearing, which could result in a judge issuing an order for their removal. Then, just like that, a New Yorker who was trying to follow our immigration laws is now at grave risk of ICE deporting them. That’s exactly what Trump and his enablers behind him want.

This dilemma, which undermines the proper functioning of immigration courts and makes it harder for people to receive justice, was precisely why the government has long refrained from carrying out most arrests at immigration courthouses. ICE’s reversal of its prior policy isn’t just a bad decision, it’s illegal.

That’s why, earlier this month, the NYCLU, ACLU, Make the Road New York, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel sued the Trump administration to end ICE’s cruel courthouse arrests policies. Our lawsuit argues that the policies violate the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that ensures transparency and accountability in how federal agencies create and enforce policies and regulations.

We hope this lawsuit will ensure that ICE agents can’t unlawfully arrest anyone else while attending their mandatory court hearings.

Oliver Played by the Rules. ICE Arrested Him Anyway

Trump’s courthouse policies create new victims every day. Our courthouse arrest case follows a lawsuit the NYCLU, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights filed on behalf of 19-year-old asylum-seeker Oliver Mata Velazquez. Oliver is a New Yorker living and working in Buffalo who was arrested and detained by ICE agents when appearing for his scheduled court hearing in May.

He entered the U.S. legally, he has no criminal history, and he’s complied with every government order he’s received. But that doesn’t matter to the Trump administration: ICE illegally arrested and detained Oliver anyway. ICE officials wanted to deny him access to immigration court and fast-track his deportation. That’s when we stepped in.

Last month, a federal district court ordered ICE to release Oliver. Now he’s back in Buffalo, reunited with his family and community while his asylum case continues. Oliver shouldn’t have had to endure months of detention for doing what the government asked of him.

Squalid Detention Conditions

The pace of courthouse arrests has been so high that the government doesn’t have enough space to safely hold everyone. The New York Times reported that ICE had apprehended so many people in courthouses in Lower Manhattan that people have had to sleep on the floor of temporary holding cells located in one courthouse, 26 Federal Plaza.

“Hundreds of migrants have slept on the floor or sitting upright, sometimes for days, said Francisco Castillo, a Dominican immigrant who was held there for three days last week.”

26 Federal Plaza is not meant to be a long-term detention facility. It is only meant to hold people for a matter of hours, and has no beds, showers, or adequate medical support. But now, because Trump is forcing ICE to meet arbitrary arrest quotas, people detained there estimate that ICE has packed between 70 to 90 people into a room of about 215 square feet. ICE isn’t providing people with changes of clothes, basic hygiene items, or adequate edible food and is now regularly detaining people there for more than a week and sometimes for weeks at a time.

Federal authorities have also prevented people held at the courthouse from communicating with their lawyers who could help them make their case to stay in the country.

The NYCLU, ACLU, Make the Road NY, and Wang Hecker filed a lawsuit in August decrying the “crowded, squalid, and punitive conditions” at 26 Federal Plaza. The suit also argues that barring people from contact with their lawyers amounts to yet another way in which the Trump administration wants to prevent immigrants from getting justice in the courtroom.

Just days after we filed our case, a federal court granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE from detaining immigrants in abusive conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. The order limits the number of people ICE can hold at once and requires ICE to provide better access to hygiene, sleeping mats, and medical care. It also mandates that ICE make sure people confined in the building can get access to confidential calls with their lawyers right away.

The Constitution requires that no one – especially someone unlawfully arrested at their immigration hearing – should have to endure the dehumanizing conditions we’ve challenged in our case. We’re one step closer to stopping ICE from continuing this cruelty.

Expanding ICE’s Reach

The Trump administration isn’t content with just using ICE agents to upend the operation of immigration courts — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to expand the terrain on which ICE agents can stir up havoc. Bondi’s Department of Justice sued New York in June over the state’s Protect Our Courts Act, which blocks immigration agents from arresting people in state and local courthouses without a warrant from a judge.

The NYCLU was instrumental in getting the Protect Our Courts Act signed into law. We pushed for it because it helps make sure immigrant communities can seek justice and defend their rights without fear of getting profiled or arrested.

The Trump administration wants immigrants to feel threatened no matter where they are or where they go. But New Yorkers know this is wrong. Everyone deserves justice and to have their day in court.