In an important bit of reporting, THE CITY documents how New York City now outstrips the entire nation in its rate of ICE arrests in city courthouses. Mind you, that means the people that ICE is nabbing were seeking to obey the law by making a required appearance when they were captured.
This development stands in marked contrast to Trump’s earlier “tough on people of color and the poors as a proxy for crooks” posturing. ICE had threatened to make a visible example of New York City by “flooding” it. Yet ICE instead is doing many, if not most, of its roundups nearly entirely out of the sight of cameras. And Trump continues his faux macho attack on Democrat enclaves with his threat to round up the homeless in DC and now to take over its policing.
THE CITY points out that this practice spares Mayor Adams the spectacle, which has occurred in other blue cities, of ICE arrests leading to scenes and public protests, particularly when the ICE target is believed to have been wrongly arrested. So are Trump and ICE trying to assist Adams, whose odds of winning the upcoming mayoral elections are vanishingly small? Have the financiers in New York quietly told Trump that too much in the way of scenes in New York City, a tourist magnet and even post-Covid, still America’s biggest commercial center, would make America look ungovernable and work to Trump’s disadvantage?
This article also discusses a second layer of Adams playing too nicely with ICE, that of foot-dragging about trying to get answers about an ICE non-detention detention center. Recall that, in defiance of Federal statute, ICE has denied many Congresscritters access to ICE detention centers. As we explained in an overview to another THE CITY article, on its expose of conditions in an ICE lockup in Manhattan:
Even though a New York City story might seem a bit parochial, ICE, which has announced plans to “flood” the Big Apple, is also implementing detention conditions designed to evade oversight. Recall that per statute, Congresscritters have the right to enter ICE detention centers to see if conditions are adequate and potentially speak to particular detainees who think their capture was improper. It’s a sad testament to the effectiveness of propaganda in the US that we need to point out that immigrants have due process rights which ICE is flagrantly abusing…
Now to the able reporting by THE CITY on the latest ICE law-breaking approach (funny how an organization that likes to wrap itself in the mantle of being a law enforcer in fact has no regard for them), of detaining alleged deportation candidates. Recall that New York has strict limits, a mere 24 hours, for how long individuals can be held without having been arraigned. Note that ICE has the authority to arrest suspected immigration law violators, and then only based on the issuance of an administrative warrant….
The norms for the legal limits for detention without having been arrested in New York City is only about 20 minutes, although there is no hard and fast rule. For arrests, the limit to detention before being arraigned is 24 hours for misdemeanors and 72 hours for felonies or designated offenses such as domestic abuse.
One suspects the reason for ICE resorting to the new gimmick of a non-detention detention center is the fact that is has been flagrantly violating the legal requirement to allow Congresscritters access to detention facilities. I have not kept up on whether any of members of Congress have gone to court over this matter. If they haven’t, it’s long overdue, if nothing else to throw down a marker.
Sadly, no one has come up with an effective response to ICE jackbootery. And Trump is causing chaos on so many fronts so that immigration coverage has generally fallen off the front page.
And a fresh THE CITY account describes how the matter of this non-detention detention center and its apparently Dickensean conditions has finally gotten to court. From Judge Mulls Stepping In as Detainees Detail ‘A Lot of Blood’ and ‘Terrible Smells’ at Federal Plaza:
A 20-year-old high school student forced to wear blood-soaked clothing for days when Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to provide her a maxi pad. Dozens of people crammed in a room so tightly they had to try to sleep sitting up. A man who watched another prisoner have a seizure for a half an hour before medical help came.
These are some of the accounts to emerge in sworn affidavits of immigrants who were locked inside ICE’s shadowy processing area on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza that the agency has barred members of Congress from inspecting.
On Tuesday morning, a federal judge in Manhattan – Judge Lewis A. Kaplan – will consider stepping in at a virtual hearing where he’ll hear from immigrants rights groups and attorneys for the Trump administration.
Needless to say, this conduct is consistent with Adams’ Republican lite positioning for his re-election bid as an Independent. His rundown from City & State New York:
His ideological stance in brief: Conservative, pro-business Democrat who is now running as an independent candidate. More likely to criticize progressives than the Trump administration…
What is he running on? Delivering a “safer, more affordable city,” closing illegal smokeshops, the landmark City of Yes zoning reform will spur more housing. He petitioned on the “Safe Streets, Affordable City” and “EndAntiSemitism” ballot lines in November. You’re technically only allowed one line as an independent candidate, but Adams said he would sue to keep both.
Now to the main event.
By Haidee Chu and Gwynne Hogan. Originally published at THE CITY on August 11, 2025
On a recent morning in Lower Manhattan, immigration Judge John Siemietkowski spoke to three people in his courtroom while masked federal officers waited just outside.
“I’m sure you can see with your own eyes what’s going on in our courthouse,” Siemietkowski said.
“You may see someone you know get arrested. You yourself may get arrested,” he warned. “That’s a heavy topic, isn’t it? A lot like the weather today. It’s heavy, and it weighs on us.”
Siemietkowski scheduled the three for court dates in 2026 and dismissed them. As they left the courtroom, two of them, a married couple from Panama, walked by the officers unimpeded. But when the third man, from the Dominican Republic, passed the officers, he was grabbed by the shoulders in plain view of Siemietkowski’s dais and escorted down a stairwell.
Such scenes have played out over and over again in the more than two months since officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement agencies began lurking in the fluorescent-lit corridors of the three Manhattan courthouses where immigrants in deportation proceedings plead their cases.
Half of all immigration court arrests nationwide were in New York City in late May and early June, according to a new analysis of federal immigration court and ICE data by THE CITY and Joseph Gunther, a Brooklyn mathematician who first identified a method to track courthouse arrests.
ICE officers elsewhere have been detaining thousands of people at workplaces, Home Depot parking lots and even sending militarized cavalry units through big city parks. But enforcement in New York City has been focused inside of the very buildings where people show up at civil immigration hearings to petition for the right to legally remain in the United States. It’s an approach that the agency had taken pains to avoid before Trump’s second term because of the deterrent effect it has on noncitizens with immigration court hearings.
That changed dramatically in New York City this late spring. Between May 26 and June 8, court and ICE records show, federal officers arrested 134 people in Lower Manhattan immigration courthouse buildings, accounting for nearly a third of all immigration arrests in New York City in that period.
Overall, immigration courthouse arrests have been nearly 14 times as common in New York City than the country as a whole. They made up 7% of all ICE arrests in the city since President Donal Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 through June, compared to 0.5% nationally over the same period of time.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment on the analysis, which cross-references Executive Office of Immigration Review(EOIR) court data with ICE arrest records to identify cases that show a court hearing on the same date as an arrest.
At the same time that courthouse arrests began ramping up, ICE also ratcheted up arrests at mandatory check-ins with the agency. Those arrests took place at offices like the one across the street from 26 Federal Plaza, where THE CITY witnessed 31 arrests over two days, as well as another office inside 26 Federal Plaza itself, where people line up each morning. Some never get to leave of their own accord.
As a result of the courthouse arrests ICE has emphasized in New York City, a large number of arrests here are happening behind closed doors — sparing Mayor Eric Adams the spectacle of roundups on city streets seen elsewhere in the country and the potential for clashes with New Yorkers.
In Los Angeles, immigration arrests in highly visible public settings triggered sustained mass protests, leading President Trump to deploy the National Guard and then the Marines to assist ICE agents in June. Mayor Karen Bass described Los Angeles as “a city under siege, under armed occupation.”
While smaller protests have been common, no such dramatic standoffs have occurred yet in New York City, where Adams has pledged to work with the Trump administration on matters that don’t involve civil immigration enforcement, taking a less adversarial approach to ICE than mayors in other Democratic strongholds.
In April, the Trump Justice Department dropped the criminal corruption case against Adams. Less than a day later, Adams, who was elected in 2021 as a Democrat, announced a longshot independent bid for a second term.
Missing Persons
EOIR data shows the surge in courthouse arrests kicked off nationally on May 19 and ramped up in New York City several days later. A former employee at the New York immigration court said that everyone — including Department of Homeland Security attorneys who serve as prosecutors inside the immigration court system — seemed surprised on the day in May when they first saw ICE agents in the hallways.
“We had no notice this was happening, I don’t think the prosecutors had much notice either,” the former employee recalled, saying the DHS prosecutors had been ordered to come to the building in person instead of appearing virtually as they typically did.
ICE agents had been in or near the courthouse before then — for example, if an immigrant had a serious criminal conviction that made them subject to rules requiring detention while a case proceeded. But that was exceedingly rare, the former EOIR employee said.
“Even that hadn’t happened in years,” the person said. “It’s never been anything like this.”
In New York City, 110 people were arrested on the same day as their immigration court hearing through June under the Trump administration, court data shows, accounting for 24% of the 453 such arrests nationwide.
But ICE likely arrested even more people here in connection with court appearances.
The agency’s own arrest data, when cross-referenced with court data, suggests at least another 71 people in New York City were detained on the same day as their hearing. That brings the number of total immigration court arrests in the city this year to 181 — a dramatic escalation from 11 arrests all of last year, including just three over the same time period.
Taken together, the analysis found 31% of all ICE arrests in the city took place in immigration courts in the two weeks between May 26 and June 8, when courthouse arrests spiked across the country.
Other cities trailed far behind: San Diego was a distant second with 37 arrests, followed by 32 in Annandale, Va., and 29 in Newark, N. J., according to court data.
In Los Angeles, where ICE arrests have also surged, EOIR records show only six arrests within its three immigration courts.
New York City’s courthouse arrests have exclusively targeted adults, and mostly men, records show, with the youngest confirmed arrest that of a 19-year-old Venezuelan teen, and the oldest a 63-year-old from Ecuador.
Just three of the people arrested were represented by a lawyer. Many judges allow people with attorneys to appear virtually, leaving many without representation to face a gauntlet of masked ICE agents awaiting their arrival alone.
Even past the 181 arrests THE CITY identified in government records, our reporting found several additional arrests were not reflected in court records — highlighting that these preliminary tallies are undoubtedly an undercount.
The arrest of 20-year-old high schooler Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema, who was taken from a court hearing in late June, for example, is not reflected in the current court data.
The court data also omits the detention of a 19-year-old man from Guinea who ICE records indicate was arrested on the same day as his court hearing at 26 Federal Plaza. He has since been transferred to a detention center in Jonesboro, Louisiana, where he was held for 26 days before being transferred to another detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Black Box
The scene at the immigration courthouse on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza on a recent morning showed the ICE arrest apparatus now well entrenched.
Judge James Loprest was out for the day, but many people with pending cases had dutifully shown up anyway. They took turns speaking to the clerk, who handed them notices to appear at a later date. But as they tried to leave, masked agents confronted them at the doorway asking for identification.
Agents whisked a 19-year-old girl into a stairwell for questioning before releasing her several minutes later.
A woman who looked to be in her thirties, wearing gold high heels and a sparkly green jumpsuit, was not so lucky. The woman’s hands trembled as the agents towered over her. “But I haven’t done anything,” she said incredulously in Spanish, weeping softly and asking a volunteer stationed nearby to call her husband, who was waiting for her outside.
“It’s not a question,” an agent said in Spanish with a thick American accent. “We said you’re leaving with us.”
Moments later, the men surrounded the woman and rushed her to a back stairwell and out of sight. She — like the many others apprehended inside immigration courthouses at 26 Federal Plaza, 290 Broadway and on Varick Street — was detained for processing in the ICE office on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza. As the number of arrests has soared in recent weeks, ICE has struggled to move people into actual detention centers, leaving some for days in cramped holding rooms with no beds and limited food.
On Friday, the ACLU sued the Trump Administration over conditions there. People haven’t been able to speak privately with lawyers, the lawsuit alleged, and are only given limited food and left to sleep for days on concrete floors in unsanitary conditions. DHS has flatly denied any mistreatment while repeatedly denying members of Congress access to the site, keeping it entirely out of public view until THE CITY first published videos of it in July.
City Comptroller Brad Lander — who was arrested at 26 Federal Plaza in June while accompanying immigrants to their court appearances — was reluctant during his most recent visit on Thursday to speculate about why enforcement had taken such a different shape in New York.
“It’s one of the big questions,” Lander said, pointing to the public scenes of intimidation in Los Angeles.
Lander has called on Adams to enforce potential building and fire code violations on ICE’s detention floor, though Adams said he has no jurisdiction over the federal building.
“It’s certainly possible that there’s some implicit deal between the Trump administration and Eric Adams, which is why these arrests are being concentrated here versus other places around the country,” Lander said when pressed about why enforcement here had been so different.
“If the mayor wants to demonstrate that there isn’t, there’s a lot of ways for him to show he’s objecting to what’s going on here that he’s failed to do.”
Asked about Lander’s comments, Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for Adams, said that “I can’t tell you why they’re doing this at 26 Federal Plaza.”
She said the mayor has been clear he’s open to working with the Trump administration on criminal matters but draws the line on civil immigration enforcement. She also noted New York City had not seen immigration raids in sensitive locations like churches and schools — something Adams had urged Homan against during their meetings.
“Not having an adversarial-at-all-times relationship can sometimes be beneficial,” said Mamelak.
The Trump administration sued the mayor and City Council in late July, demanding an end to sanctuary city laws that prohibit local government cooperation with civil immigration enforcement. The Adams administration is suing in return, including three lawsuits on behalf of students arrested at immigration court appearances.
“What’s going on at 26 Fed, the mayor opposes, and he’s taken action on that,” Mamelak said.
Adams, however, has largely avoided answering questions or speaking on camera about those conditions. He’srepeatedly stressed that the city isn’t responsible for what happens inside of the ICE offices, now including a jail, inside its real estate in Manhattan.
Meanwhile, ICE immigration court arrests continue day after day for people who continue to show up at their court appearances.
‘Guiding Star’?
Courthouse arrests have mostly targeted people who entered the country less than two years ago, THE CITY’s analysis shows, confirming what the Trump administration has said is a new focus on attempting to funnel people into “expedited removal” proceedings that can circumvent immigration courts, which are facing historic backlogs and take years to resolve a person’s deportation case.
But while DHS prosecutors regularly asked judges to dismiss a person’s deportation case ahead of their arrest, judges rarely approved those requests.
Government prosecutors had requested that judges dismiss the removal proceedings in 100 of the 181 instances where people were arrested on the day of their court hearing, THE CITY’s analysis shows. But judges denied 69 of those requests and left 23 of them undecided.
That means only eight dismissals were approved — and that the other 173 people were arrested while their cases were still ongoing, forcing them to fight their asylum claims from behind bars in most cases.
“We very quickly saw on the ground that the procedural posture didn’t actually matter,” said Allison Cutler, supervising attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group. She is one of a handful of attorneys keeping watch on the courthouse arrests, and attempts to advise people without lawyers of their rights as they’re rushed away.
Over the past two months, Cutler has become friendly with court staff, security guards, judges, and even the federal agents, who’ve all had their status quo upended by the arrests.
Many agents, she pointed out, have been drafted from other agencies, including the U.S. Department of Treasury and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to conduct courthouse arrests on behalf of ICE.
“I’ve had multiple officers tell me that they’re gonna quit,” Cutler said, adding they’ve told her they’ve had to forgo working on prior investigations to arrest people inside courtrooms. “They have asked their supervisors if they can continue to work on their investigations, and they’re being told no, and that they have to go to court and do this.”
Meanwhile, immigration judges and court staff in New York are grappling with a grim new normal, with each of them struggling to work out the rules for their courtrooms.
A former New York immigration judge, who called fairness “the guiding star” of the system, called the shift in tactics deeply troubling and unprecedented.
“Now you’re a tool in someone’s tool box so that a person can be detained,” the judge said.
