It wasn’t just immigrants who felt the wrath of ICE at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday.
An American citizen got into a shoving match outside an immigration courtroom on the 12th floor with a group of agents who violently accosted him as they detained an immigrant. One of the officers could be seen grabbing him by the neck and shirt collar and pushing him against the wall.
“I am an American citizen!” he screamed! “I don’t even want to tell my kids this is the country we are living in.”
“You should be at home taking care of your kids,” one of the ICE agents responded.
After a minutes-long confrontation, the man was permitted to leave without being arrested. Security details escorted him from the building.
The episode was just part of the chaos that unfolded in immigration court on Sept. 9 as ICE agents were on the prowl at Federal Plaza — and immigrants attending court-ordered hearings were left weeping in terror.
Arresting fear for immigrants
The fear of potential arrest left one woman hailing from Colombia on the verge of a nervous breakdown. According to court observers, the woman, who was not named, was so afraid of the masked, armed agents in the hallway that she refused to leave the courtroom.
Father Fabian Arias of Saint Peter’s Church, who was watching the proceedings, prayed over her and helped guide her past the agents as she screamed in terror, horrified that she would be separated from her children who were still at home. She was able to pass and gave amNewYork a tearful thumbs-up as she entered an elevator.
Not all immigrants were as lucky Tuesday.
ICE made several detainments over the course of the day, including separating a father from his young son and wife. The trio made it by the agents undetected before an agent ran into the elevator after them.
One of the masked men attempted to physically remove an amNewYork photographer from the elevator but gave up.
The agent then took it down to the sixth floor, where they pulled him from his family — leaving them distressed and confused behind the closing elevator doors.
These frenzied scenes come after several immigration judges were fired from their roles overseeing hearings. As reported by The City, two immigration judges were let go and are planned to be replaced by military attorneys, who many feel will have a bias toward ICE.
“The worst of it has to be when they separate families, and they don’t like to do that a lot, but every now and again, they do. It never ends without the family just breaking down,” Peter, a court observer said. “Just toxic to a grieving mother and child as they rip away their father.”
Nneka Jackson, an attorney at the Law Offices of Nneka Jackson, recently told amNewYork that she feels many judges have been dismissing cases out of fear for their jobs.
“I think a lot of judges are scared of being retaliated against or losing their jobs, because you’ve seen in recent cases where there are immigration judges that have high approval ratings have gotten fired, and I think a lot of judges are scared to either get fired or have retaliation, so a lot of them are just agreeing with DHS,” Jackson said. “There’s been so many cases where the judges are not even listening to attorneys’ arguments. No matter how valid the arguments are, they’re just automatically siding with DHS.”
