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Federal agents took<\/span> three people into custody at immigration courts in New York City over the last week in what lawyers said appears to be the first grave violations of two orders by federal judges barring such arrests.<\/p>\n On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an Ecuadorian man at a court at 26 Federal Plaza and a man from the Dominican Republic at another court at 290 Broadway, both in Lower Manhattan. The arrests continued on Monday, when ICE agents detained a third man, originally from Guatemala, at 290 Broadway.<\/p>\n In legal filings challenging the detentions of the men taken Thursday, advocates with the nonprofit Make the Road New York accused ICE of not only violating their clients\u2019 right to due process, but also of brazenly flouting a federal court order.<\/p>\n The judge\u2019s order barred ICE from making arrests at Manhattan immigration courts in all but a narrow handful of exceptions, while a similar ruling issued on June 23 from a federal court in California applies nationwide.<\/p>\n By detaining the men at court on Thursday, ICE appears to be directly contravening the New York order without yet providing a justification, according to Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.<\/p>\n \u201cICE 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,\u201d Goldman said in a statement to The Intercept, adding that his office was working to get the men released.<\/p>\n ICE appears to be acting outside the law, according to Murad Awawdeh, the head of the advocacy group New York Immigration Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cWe\u2019re witnessing ICE, yet again, operate in a lawless and rogue fashion and not following court orders,\u201d Awawdeh said. \u201cWe\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n In its habeas corpus filings, lawyers from Make the Road demanded that the two men arrested Thursday be released and allowed to continue navigating the immigration process.<\/p>\n In a statement to The Intercept, a spokesperson for ICE denied that the agency had violated any court order. The spokesperson did not explain how the arrests fit into the exceptions to the ban on courthouse arrests put in place by the federal judge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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\u2019s order.<\/p>\n That has not been the case for the men arrested on Thursday and Monday. All three men have since been transferred to detention centers, according to ICE records.<\/p>\n The Dominican man arrested Thursday is currently being held at ICE\u2019s Delaney Hall detention facility<\/a> in Newark, New Jersey, while 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 Intercept is withholding the detained men\u2019s names because of the sensitive nature of their cases.)<\/p>\n The arrests appeared to end a brief period of calm at Manhattan immigration courts in the wake of the May 18 ruling<\/a> by Judge Kevin Castel requiring ICE to revert to a policy put in place in 2021. The Biden-era policy allowed for courthouse arrests with prior authorization in only a handful of instances, including when a person might pose a threat to national security or to public safety \u2014 narrowly defined as cases in which agents are in direct pursuit of a subject or if it would not be possible to make the arrest in another location.<\/p>\n In their 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.<\/p>\n One immigration lawyer said the courthouse arrests were part of a growing pattern of increased ICE detentions.<\/p>\n \u201cFor whatever reason, that order is essentially being disregarded, and we\u2019ve seen a pretty significant uptick in detentions,\u201d said Benjamin Remy, senior coordinating attorney at the immigration protection unit of the New York Legal Assistance Group.<\/p>\n In the year and a half since President Trump returned to office and unleashed<\/a> the agency as part of his mass deportation agenda<\/a>, ICE has repeatedly been found in violation<\/a> of orders<\/a> around the detention of immigrants. The alleged violations have been ramping up<\/a> in recent months, according to advocates and court records.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen ICE have a fairly flexible and adaptive relationship when it comes to the truth and the facts,\u201d Remy said, \u201cand to complying with court orders and frankly to rule of law as a fundamental concept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
No Exceptions<\/strong><\/h2>\n