In its first six months, the second Trump administration has weaponized government machinery to wage war on immigrants while dismantling constitutional protections. With more than 300 anti-immigrant executive orders and policies, the administration has proven that if some of us don’t have rights, none of us do.
In New York, we are witnessing injustice unfold in real time. Across three Manhattan buildings where immigrants historically sought justice through immigration courts, they are now being trapped, detained and disappeared.
The New York Immigration Coalition recently released video from inside the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza exposing what we feared: ICE has been operating an illegal detention facility in the heart of Manhattan while systematically blocking oversight and deceiving the public.
The footage reveals the grim reality of what ICE euphemistically calls a “processing center.” Dozens of immigrants are crammed into fluorescent-lit rooms, sleeping on concrete floors covered only by thin emergency heating blankets next to half-broken toilets.
But the conditions inside are only part of a larger, more sinister operation. ICE has transformed 26 Federal Plaza into a trap, weaponizing New York’s immigration courts to ensnare people following the law. Since May, federal agents have been ambushing immigrants as they leave hearings where judges granted them continuances or relief. People arrive believing they are participating in legal proceedings. Instead, they walk into a carefully orchestrated snare designed to funnel them into detention.
ICE’s own data exposes the lie behind their “brief processing” claims. During May and June, immigrants were held for an average of 29 hours, with 81 people detained for four days or more. In June alone, an average of 89 people were detained each night. The numbers reveal a system of warehousing men and women in conditions that would be condemned in any other context.
This courthouse trap represents a fundamental violation of due process. Immigration courts are supposed to be neutral forums where people can seek protection. ICE has instead turned them into hunting grounds, creating terror that discourages people from accessing the legal system. When immigrants cannot safely attend court hearings, immigration law, if not our very Constitution, becomes meaningless.
The individuals detained at 26 Federal Plaza are not convicted criminals. In fact, they appeared in court as was required of them before the Trump administration suddenly and without merit revoked legal status for hundreds of thousands of residents. Many have pending asylum cases, work permits and strong community ties. They are parents whose children are suddenly stranded at school and community members whose only “crime” was trusting that following legal processes would protect them.
What makes this operation even more un-American is ICE’s systematic obstruction of accountability. Reps. Nydia Velázquez, Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler have repeatedly attempted to access the 10th floor to conduct constitutional oversight duties. Each time, ICE denied them entry, claiming the facility is merely an office space.
Members of Congress have explicit authority to conduct unannounced visits to any facility under their jurisdiction that is used to detain immigrants. ICE’s refusal violates federal law.
The courthouse trap at 26 Federal Plaza is part of a strategy to dismantle the immigration system from within. By making court attendance dangerous, ICE forces people underground, then uses their absence from future hearings as justification for deportation orders. It manufactures “criminals” out of people seeking legal protection.
The video from the 10th floor provides irrefutable evidence of what happens when government agencies operate without oversight. People are crammed into spaces designed for far fewer individuals, denied basic necessities and cut off from family and legal counsel. We cannot continue to allow state-sanctioned cruelty to masquerade as immigration enforcement.
New Yorkers should be able to attend immigration court without fear of being disappeared into a shadow detention system. Our courts should be places where people can seek justice, not traps designed to ensnare the vulnerable. The systematic obstruction of congressional oversight, inhumane detention conditions and courthouse ambush operation at 26 Federal Plaza represent a fundamental threat to the rule of law.
We must hold power to account. ICE must immediately end courthouse enforcement operations, grant members of Congress access to detention facilities as required by law, and shut down the shadow detention center. Until then, every New Yorker should understand that what is happening at 26 Federal Plaza represents the deliberate weaponization of our legal system against not just immigrant communities but all of us.
Awawdeh is president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition.
