Chaos unfolded inside the hallways of immigration court in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday as ICE arrested a Paraguayan native whom a judge granted a return court date.
The incident occurred on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, as city Comptroller Brad Lander was conducting one of his weekly court observations.
According to Lander, a man identified as Carlos Javier was granted asylum application for July 2029 pursuant to the Convention Against Torture. However, when Javier left the hallway, masked federal agents grabbed him.
‘Don’t touch me! Don’t assault me!’
Mayhem ensued as the masked agents not only grappled with Javier but also shoved his sister to the ground, all the while wrestling with other court observers. At least four agents, one of whom grabbed Javier by the scruff of his neck, forced him into a nearby stairwell; one agent was heard threatening to arrest his sister.
“Don’t touch me,” another woman screamed.
“Don’t assault me,” an ICE agent responded.
Lander said the agents were “super aggressive” with Javier’s sister, and yet again took the federal agents to task for concealing their faces behind coverings and not displaying any badges or warrants as they moved to arrest Javier and other immigrants.
“You could barely see them through their balaclavas and hats without any identifying information or badges or warrants, grabbed Carlos, and then quickly moved him toward the back stairwell,” Lander recalled. “And then they were super aggressive with his sister, she was trying to hug her brother goodbye, basically, but they roughly shoved her to the ground, as you have seen them do, as I have seen them do in many cases.”
Javier’s sister was left weeping and screaming in agony at the violent apprehension and detention of her brother. Her guttural cries of anguish echoed down the hallways.
Lander said he, for the first time, tried to tell the judge that the feds won’t abide by the return court date but his pleas fell on deaf ears.
“The judge responded by saying, basically, my hands are tied,” Lander said.
Javier was just one of a number of immigrants taken into custody at Federal Plaza Wednesday — a scene that has been repeated at the facility for weeks.
Masked agents also pounced on several other individuals who could not speak English. Despite lawyers’ pleas for a translator, the agents took the individuals away with little warning. There were, however, a number of immigrants who visited the court on Wednesday who made it through the corridor unscathed.
Lander said the Javier hearing and arrest that followed had devolved into “a murderous reality show.”
“Today’s hearing felt, honestly, like a murderous reality show,” Lander said. “Carlos not only has status as an asylum seeker, but he also has an application pending for asylum. Carlos has a court date in this building in July of 2029, at which the judge carefully instructed him on how to prepare to bring his case.”
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