ICE arrests immigrants at Manhattan courts despite judge orders

ICE arrests – Federal immigration agents took three men into custody at Manhattan immigration courts over the past week, prompting lawyers to accuse ICE of violating two separate federal orders barring courthouse arrests except in narrow circumstances.

For the men and families who show up to immigration court on a scheduled day, the courthouse is supposed to be the place where the system finally listens. Over the past week in New York City, federal immigration agents instead treated the hearings themselves as enforcement opportunities.

ICE took three people into custody at immigration courts in Manhattan. On Thursday. agents arrested an Ecuadorian man at a court at 26 Federal Plaza and arrested a man from the Dominican Republic at another court at 290 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. The arrests continued on Monday, when ICE detained a third man, originally from Guatemala, at 290 Broadway.

Lawyers for the detained men say the timing is the problem. In legal filings challenging the detentions of the two men arrested on Thursday. advocates with the nonprofit Make the Road New York accused ICE of violating their clients’ right to due process and of brazenly flouting a federal court order.

The New York judge’s order barred ICE from making arrests at Manhattan immigration courts in all but a narrow handful of exceptions. A similar ruling issued on June 23 from a federal court in California applies nationwide. The attorneys and lawmakers arguing against the arrests say ICE appears to have stepped into the exact conduct those rulings sought to stop.

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said in a statement that ICE “continues to flagrantly violate the law by arresting immigrants who are attending their mandatory court hearings, despite a court order mandating an end to courthouse arrests,” and added that his office was working to get the men released.

Murad Awawdeh, head of the advocacy group New York Immigration Coalition, said the agency is acting outside the bounds of the court’s directive.

“We’re witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders,” Awawdeh said. “We’re supposedly a nation under the rule of law, and our judicial branch has said that this agency must stop engaging in this lawless behavior, and they continue to do so.”

In habeas corpus filings, Make the Road New York’s lawyers demanded that the two men arrested Thursday be released and allowed to continue navigating the immigration process.

ICE disputes that claim. In a statement to The Intercept, an ICE spokesperson denied that the agency had violated any court order, but did not explain how the arrests fit into the exceptions to the ban on courthouse arrests put in place by the federal judge.

That silence is part of what has raised alarms. The arrests did not end with swift releases as they had during the brief period of calm that followed earlier court action.

From May 18 until last week, just two arrests had taken place at Manhattan immigration courts. In both cases. the detainees were swiftly released after lawyers and immigrant rights groups mobilized to invoke the federal judge’s order. That didn’t happen for the men taken into custody on Thursday and Monday. All three have since been transferred to detention centers, according to ICE records.

The Dominican man arrested Thursday is being held at ICE’s Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. The Ecuadorian man arrested the same day is being held at the D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Folkston, Georgia. The Guatemalan man arrested on Monday is being held at the Orange County Detention Facility in upstate New York. The detained men’s names are being withheld because of the sensitive nature of their cases.

Theodore Castel’s order—issued on May 18—had required ICE to revert to a policy put in place in 2021. Under that Biden-era policy. courthouse arrests could happen only with prior authorization in a handful of instances. including situations involving potential threat to national security or to public safety. Those terms were narrowly defined as cases where agents were in direct pursuit of a subject or where it would not be possible to make the arrest in another location.

In its statement. the ICE spokesperson pointed to a conviction for trespassing on the part of the Dominican man and a 2025 conviction for disorderly conduct on the part of the Ecuadorian man. Yet the spokesperson still did not lay out the link between those facts and the specific exceptions allowed under the judge’s order.

For attorneys watching the courts, the week’s arrests are less an isolated flare-up than a continuation of a larger pattern.

Benjamin Remy. senior coordinating attorney at the immigration protection unit of the New York Legal Assistance Group. said courthouse arrests appear to be rising again. “For whatever reason. that order is essentially being disregarded. and we’ve seen a pretty significant uptick in detentions. ” he said.

Remy also described the human cost of a system that forces people to choose between showing up to their hearing and staying out of the agents’ reach. “It is not uncommon for me to encounter folks walking into court in the morning already just sobbing. ” Remy told The Intercept. “These arrests are discouraging the legal process. It’s discouraging people’s fundamental constitutional right to due process and to be able to have their day in court.”.

That bind has been a recurring theme in immigration court fights. According to petitions filed by Make the Road New York. both men arrested last week had fled home due to persecution. entered the U.S. and had been detained before obtaining release as their cases proceeded. When summoned to court, they showed up as instructed.

The broader stakes extend beyond the individuals detained this week. Beginning in May 2025 and continuing for almost exactly a year. ICE arrests at 26 Federal Plaza. 290 Broadway. and another immigration court at 201 Varick Street had become commonplace. with hundreds of people swept up by masked ICE agents when they showed up for scheduled hearings. An analysis published last August by The City Reporter. a local news site. found that more than half of courthouse arrests nationwide were taking place in New York.

In the year and a half since President Trump returned to office and unleashed the agency as part of his mass deportation agenda. ICE has repeatedly been found in violation of orders around the detention of immigrants. Advocates and court records say alleged violations have been ramping up in recent months.

Remy put it bluntly. “We’ve seen ICE have a fairly flexible and adaptive relationship when it comes to the truth and the facts,” he said, “and to complying with court orders and frankly to rule of law as a fundamental concept.”

As the three men remain in detention centers—New Jersey. Georgia. and upstate New York—lawyers are pressing courts to decide whether ICE’s actions can be reconciled with the orders that were meant to protect people showing up for mandatory hearings. For many immigration families, the question isn’t only what happens next in a case file. It’s what the courthouse is supposed to mean when the next summons arrives.

ICE immigration courts Manhattan Dan Goldman Make the Road New York Kevin Castel Murad Awawdeh habeas corpus courthouse arrests Delaney Hall D. Ray James ICE Processing Center Orange County Detention Facility