ICE agents assaulted amNewYork’s own Dean Moses, and allegedly attacked another journalist, on Tuesday morning as they were documenting the ongoing arrests of individuals attending immigration court proceedings at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
Masked officials grabbed Moses, the police bureau chief of amNewYork, as he went to photograph them apprehending an immigrant inside a public elevator at around 10:15 a.m. on Sept. 30.
The chaos occurred five days after an ICE agent was caught on camera violently shoving a woman to the ground after she pursued her husband, who had been arrested after a court appearance. ICE suspended the yet-to-be-identified agent on Friday, but he reportedly returned to work on Monday, according to CBS News.
As he has done for months, Moses and other photojournalists — exercising their First Amendment rights to freedom of the press — were on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza observing the actions of masked ICE agents outside immigration courtrooms, where many individuals have been taken into custody after attending court-mandated hearings.
ICE agents paced the 12th-floor hallway on Tuesday morning and briefly followed a woman after she exited a courtroom. They suddenly stopped pursuing her and allowed the woman to head toward an elevator bank, where she boarded an arriving lift.
“A couple of seconds after she goes into the elevator, two ICE agents go in after her,” Moses said. “They never identified themselves, they didn’t ask for her papers or her ID.”
Moses said he then went into the public elevator to document the apparent arrest in progress when the ICE agents suddenly turned their attention to him.
“I walked into the elevator behind them, and they started screaming at me, ‘Get the f–k out,” he said. “Then they pushed me, grabbed me by my arms, and started pulling me out of the elevator. I tried to hold on, but I got shoved out.”
Moses snapped a photo of them after they pushed him out of the lift. It’s impossible to see who they are because of the face and head coverings they were wearing at the time.
During the episode, Moses said, a second photojournalist outside the elevator — Olga Fedorova, a freelancer working for the Associated Press — was shoved to the floor by another ICE agent. In the process, another photojournalist directly behind Fedorova fell to the floor hard.
The journalist, identified as L. Vural Elibol of the Anadolu Agency, had hit his head on the back of the floor near the elevator bank, and appeared seriously injured.
“People immediately started screaming because he was seriously injured,” Moses said of the chaotic scene. “He was semiconscious, but he didn’t move from the position for 35 to 40 minutes.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called for medical assistance and a nurse came by to provide preliminary treatment to Elibol. EMS put a neck brace on him, then loaded him onto a stretcher and took him to a local hospital for treatment; he is expected to make a recovery.
amNewYork reached out to the DHS for comment about the incident. On Tuesday afternoon, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement in which she claimed “officers were swarmed by agitators and members of the press, which obstructed operations” to arrest a person she described as “an illegal alien from Peru.”
She noted that Federal Plaza “has been the target of multiple threats, including assaults on law enforcement,” though mentioning that fact did not directly address why ICE agents attacked reporters Tuesday. McLaughlin went on to urge “the media and politicians to stop fanning the flames of division and stop demonization of law enforcement.”
Moses said that McLaughlin’s account of events was false, noting that there were “no agitators or any members of the press preventing them (the ICE agents) from doing anything.”
“No one intervened, no one stopped anything,” Moses said.
The chaos drew swift rebuke from City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was brutally arrested at Federal Plaza in June.
“Another violent attack by an ICE officer on a civilian at 26 Federal Plaza—this time on a journalist, who had to be carried out on [a] stretcher,” Lander wrote on X. “Another attack on the First Amendment, our neighbors, and our democracy.”
As for Moses, he said he suffered minor pain in his underarms and shoulder from being manhandled by ICE agents. While he said he is okay, he indicated he would be seeking a medical examination to rule out any serious injuries.
Moses, however, remains determined to continue covering the proceedings at 26 Federal Plaza, but said he was not surprised that things came to a head Tuesday.
“There has been tension definitely rising there over the months, and it’s not just between ICE and the photographers. It’s between ICE, photographers and other staff members,” he said. “It’s also among the immigrants who go there. It’s reached such a boiling point, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.”
Footage taken by @Steffikeith this morning of ICE agents shoving photographers on assignment at 26 Federal Plaza. One journalist has been hospitalized. pic.twitter.com/sOo6XAMWJP
— Molly Crane-Newman (@molcranenewman) September 30, 2025
