(New York) at 14e States of a skyscraper located on Broadway, southern Manhattan, six masked, armed and plainclothes agents are posted outside a anteroom leading to the courtroom of J. Jonathan Reingold, one morning in August.
In the antechamber, Maria Martinez and Julian Garcia, both aged 27, are nervously awaiting the time of their very first appearance before an immigration judge, in the company of half a dozen other asylum seekers. Like the latter, the couple from Colombia knows that agents of the ICE (Custom and Enforcement Immigration) arrest arrests in the corridors of the New York immigration courts.
Maria’s nervousness rises with a notch when one of the agents points to her a sheet of wrapped paper and launches for her colleagues: “It is her. »»
At 9 a.m., the door of the courtroom opens and the applicants settled on benches. A lawyer for the Department of Internal Security is already seated in front of a table, on the right of the judge, while an interpreter appears on a screen.
Without preamble, judge Reingold begins to read a dozen names, asking everyone to show their presence. He only gets answers half. After explaining the procedure, he sets the date on June 11, 2026 that the present people must support their asylum request, with or without the help of a lawyer.
Photo David Dee Delgado, Reuters archives
Masked federal agents, who are waiting to carry out detentions, look at a migrant in a wheelchair in the Broadway building.
Then, by referring to the absent, he adds: “The court orders that these respondents are expelled in absentia. »»
And he dismissed others. At the tail leu leu, they leave the courtroom, then the anteroom, and lead to the corridor where the agents of the ICE are always held. Maria and Julian press the step towards the elevators. The doors of an elevator open. The couple rushed to it, followed by the journalist of The press.
When the latter asks Maria how she feels, she answers by sighing in a strong and ostensible way.
“I was so nervous,” said this ex-arrival in New York with her companion in September 2024.
Photo Richard Hétu, special collaboration
Julian Garcia and Maria Martinez
We have heard all these stories about the ICE. In recent times, I have felt a point in the back and all the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Maria Martinez, asylum seeker
Then, speaking of the agents of the Ice who gave her believe that she would be arrested, she said: “They are so coarse. »»
“They are sadistic,” says Julian, an ex-banking employee who claims to have had to leave Colombia with his wife after discovering embezzlement involving his employers and military leaders.
“A lawless area”
It is the Russian roulette of the ICE, a game which obviously makes losers among asylum seekers or migrants in an irregular situation who present themselves in the immigration courts of New York.
That same morning in August, around 10 a.m., at 12e Station of the Broadway skyscraper, Brad Lander arrives and is placed along the corridor located outside the courtroom of judge David Kim. There are already a dozen ICE agents, all masked, armed and dressed in civilian clothes, as well as half a dozen photographers.
Lander, a financial controller of New York, was himself already arrested by the ICE last June, while he was trying to escort an asylum seeker at the exit of his hearing at the immigration court located at 26, Federal Plaza. Unhappy candidate for the Democratic primary for the election to the town hall of New York, he continues to frequent the place as an observer.
“I have returned here several times because this place has become an area of lawlessness,” he said The presswhile he is a stone’s throw from the ICE agents, one of whom holds a rolled leaf on which there are photos of people to stop.
Photo David Dee Delgado, Reuters archives
Brad Lander is trying to access the ownership cells of the Manhattan immigration court in July.
On the one hand, you have a courtroom where people expect the law to be respected. It is for this reason that they appear before the judge. On the other hand, you have this corridor where masked agents, who completely ignore the rule of law, remove people without taking into account what happened in the courtroom.
Brad Lander, New York financial controller
A moment later, Lander apologizes and between himself in the courtroom. Around 10:30 am, it came out following a young black. From his first step in the corridor, the latter sees agents of the Ice melt on him. Photographers start to crunch or film the scene before the young man, trained by ICE agents, disappears behind a rescue door.
This time, Brad Lander did not try to intervene between the asylum seeker and the ICE agents. But he does not seem less stirred by what he has just seen. According to him, the man arrested had just received the date of his next appearance before judge Kim.
Photo Adam Gray, Reuters archives
Protesters are arrested by police officers for blocked the passage before the building hosting the immigration courts during a rally against the Ice in New York in early August.
“These ICE agents have essentially become brown shirts,” said the elected democrat. “They remove people without worrying about the law. »»
A new policy
For years, federal officials have discouraged arrests outside the immigration courts. In 2023, the Biden administration formalized this policy in a directive, arguing that such actions would dissuade the “non-citizens” from appearing before the immigration courts.
After the repeal of this directive last January, the ICE announced, at the end of May, a new policy whose effects are felt in New York more intense than everywhere else, according to an analysis of the information site The City. “Coercive measures in or near the courts are often necessary when the (local) authorities refuse to cooperate with the ICE,” read the new directive. New York does not cooperate fully with the ICE.
This is how Benjamin Remy witnessed days when the ICE agents arrested up to 20 migrants outside the courtrooms of the 26 immigration court, Federal Plaza, one of the three tribunals of the genre in New York. His colleagues and also saw him scenes that shocked them.
“We have seen people get their faces crushed against the ground, against elevators, get caught by the neck,” says the lawyer for the New York Legal Assistance Group, who is present in court almost every day.
Photo Richard Hétu, special collaboration
Benjamin Remy
We have also seen relatives of people arrested being injured by the ICE. All this is unprecedented.
Benjamin Remy, lawyer for the New York Legal Assistance Group
That said, the number of migrants arrested in the New York immigration courts has dropped significantly since mid-August for two main reasons. On the one hand, many migrants have given up showing their appointments, for fear of being arrested by the ICE. On the other hand, a federal judge has limited the number of migrants that can be held at 10e floor of the 26th, Federal Plaza before being transferred to retention centers.
But the Russian roulette of the ICE continues in New York, exhibiting each migrant who appears before an immigration judge at the risk of being arrested.
In this dangerous game, the role of a lawyer like Benjamin Remy often consists in trying to give those arrested a document detailing their constitutional rights or summarizing them aloud before they disappear behind a door.
“I am the last person that these people see before disappearing on this staircase,” says the lawyer. “I want them to see someone who saw what happened, someone who fights for them. For these people who will be placed in detention, there is a glimmer of hope. At least people are attentive to what’s going on. People are aware. People are fighting. »»
