How We’re Taking Trump’s Deportation Machine to Court

Under the Trump administration, thousands of people who have not broken any laws currently sit trapped in detention centers without any idea if or when they will be able to return to their families and communities. In addition, they’re enduring terrible conditions such as extreme overcrowding, inadequate food and hygiene, and lack of access to legal counsel.

The administration’s agenda is clear: forcing immigrants to endure months or even years of detention under inhumane conditions while their cases make their way through the backlogged immigration system ensures that people will give up and agree to return to their home countries. Even when their cases are likely to succeed, eventually giving them the right to remain lawfully in the U.S., many are unwilling to endure the squalor and uncertainty.

There are some signs the plan is working. The AP recently reported that, while it’s impossible to know how many immigrants have fled the U.S. voluntarily since Trump took office, “The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, said judges granted ‘voluntary departure’ in 15,241 cases in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30. That compares with 8,663 voluntary departures for the previous fiscal year.”

Trump’s mass deportation agenda involves flooding America’s streets, businesses, and courthouses with ICE agents to terrorize, arrest, and detain immigrants in intolerable conditions for long periods of time. The ultimate goal is to dramatically increase the number of people who are deported from America, many of whom have legally valid bases to stay in the country.

Thousands of New Yorkers Swept Up, Detained, Deported

Trump isn’t just keeping immigrants locked up for longer while their cases wind slowly through immigration court. His administration is also arresting, detaining, and deporting more people.

A Times Union analysis of ICE data found that agents arrested over 4,600 New Yorkers in the first seven months of 2025, more than the total number arrested in the year prior. Some New Yorkers were arrested on their way to work, waiting at bus stops, or taking their children to school. Most appeared to have ongoing immigration cases.

The number of people deported also surged during these months, the Times Union reports. Over 300 people arrested by ICE were deported between January and July, with at least 170 leaving voluntarily – six times the number of people who did so in 2024.

The harm caused by the Trump administration’s action is immeasurable. Whether trapped in a detention facility or on the other side of the border, tearing New Yorkers from the lives they have built here has devastating ripple effects. Children lose the loving presence of their parent. Families lose their income, their homes, and their vehicles. And employers lose their best workers, leaving them unable to fulfil contracts. Whole communities, our economy and our state suffer under Trump’s mass deportation scheme.

An Impossible Choice

Prolonged detention – in deplorable conditions – has increasingly become a threat hanging over the heads of people who entered the country legally and have broken no law.

They face a cruel ultimatum: to deport themselves voluntarily or remain in detention for however long it takes their immigration cases to navigate the overburdened system.

Each person who leaves brings Trump one step closer to his purported goal of removing millions of immigrants from the country. ICE detentions have ballooned since he took office in January, reaching a record high of over 60,000 in August. And while Trump promised to target criminals, immigrants with no criminal record comprise the largest group of people being held.

Under previous administrations, immigrants were primarily arrested by Customs and Border Patrol agents in regions close to the border, often shortly after entering the country. But ICE agents are now making a majority of arrests in the country’s interior, spreading fear among immigrants who having been living in their communities for years and even decades.

How We’re Fighting Back

Critically, the government does not have authority to indefinitely detain anyone who is not a flight risk or a danger to others. Stripping people of their right to release is not only cruel, it’s illegal.

Here are some of the ways we are fighting back and demanding that the administration respect the rights of immigrant New Yorkers.

A Teen Illegally Detained by ICE

When 19-year-old Oliver Mata Velazquez dutifully showed up to his immigration court appointment in Buffalo in June, he was abducted by ICE agents. Although he had followed all government orders and broken no laws, he was sent to immigration detention and fast-tracked for deportation. But the NYCLU, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights sued. And we won his release. Oliver is now back home with his family, in his community, while his asylum case proceeds.

A Buffalo Asylum Seeker Locked Up for Over Seven Months

We’re working with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights to secure the release of another Buffalo resident who has been subjected to a prolonged and illegal detention. Our client fled political persecution in Cuba and entered the U.S. legally through the CPBOne app. He applied for legal status under the Cuban Adjustment Act and received work papers and a social security number. But in February of 2025, he was falsely accused of a petty crime and turned over to ICE. The charges were dismissed, yet ICE has kept him detained ever since in the Batavia detention facility near Buffalo – a facility notorious for its egregious conditions.

Weaponizing Courthouses

Since Trump was sworn into office in January, the epicenter of ICE arrests in New York has been the immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. Agents have arrested over 1,600 people who appeared for routine hearings only to be snatched by armed, masked ICE agents. This cruel policy denies people their right to due process and undermines the functioning of our immigration courts, and along with the ACLU, Make the Road New York, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, we’re suing to end ICE’s courthouse arrests.

Inhumane Conditions in ICE Detention Facilities

ICE has been unable to safely hold the surge of people they’re detaining in courthouse arrests, and at 26 Federal Plaza immigrants were made to sleep on the floor of temporary holding cells intended for only hours of use. Yet for days and even weeks at a time, immigrants trapped in these overcrowded quarters were denied changes of clothing, basic hygiene items, adequate food and access to legal counsel. Along with the ACLU, Make the Road New York, and Wang Hecker LLP, we sued to put a stop to this inhumane treatment, and a judge granted a preliminary injunction requiring the government to reduce overcrowding, provide sleeping mats, improve access to hygiene and ensure that people can make unmonitored calls to their lawyers within 24 hours of being detained.

A Bronx High Schooler Illegally Detained

Our client, Joel, is a 16-year-old Bronx high school student. He has special immigrant juvenile status, which generally shields minors from deportation. Yet with breathtaking disregard for both the law and basic human decency, ICE agents snatched Joel when he showed up for a mandatory, routine immigration check-in. Along with The Door’s Legal Services Center, we have filed suit to demand his immediate release.

Every year, thousands of immigrants, including many children, leave behind intolerable conditions elsewhere to seek safety in the U.S. They expect a fair chance, not another unbearable situation and an impossible bind. The Trump administration’s rabid attempt to eviscerate their chance to seek justice in our courts is not only cruel, it’s against the law.