ICE hardens: Masked agents intimidate reporters while seizing more immigrants at Lower Manhattan court

ICE ramped up their immigration enforcement in Lower Manhattan on Thursday morning, both in terms of physicality and what many are calling a blatant disregard for the law.

Photo by Dean Moses

ICE hardened its immigration enforcement in Lower Manhattan on Thursday morning in what some called a blatant disregard for the law, and the masked-up agents even attempted to intimidate media members documenting them.

A woman working with a volunteer group hugged a man as he left immigration court on the 29th floor of 290 Broadway on June 26. Tearfully, she told him that she was sorry, that she could not help him. Seconds later, a group of masked men pounced. Others, who were in the hallway observing the proceedings, attempted to intervene but were shoved to the wall.

Still weeping, the unnamed woman asked amNewYork: “Remind people that no matter what they are hearing, they can’t take away people’s dignity; they are human.”

Cold as ICE to reporters

But as members of the media trailed one ICE agent down the hallway, other officers made threats against the press, claiming that just a few feet from the court was a restricted area — even though they were inside a federal building and near a publicly-used elevator.

Agents also took photos of reporters’ press credentials with their cellphones in what could only be described as an intimidation tactic.

Wearing ski masks and baseball caps, the federal agents came decked up in bulletproof vests, and some even wore sleeves to hide their tattoos. Some ICE agents physically fled out of sight when amNewYork aimed a camera at them.

Volunteers sought to try and escort immigrants from the courtroom to the elevators — but the agents brutally tossed them aside and threatened them with arrest for impeding them.

Previously, federal agents waited for a court attendee’s cases to be dismissed before taking them into custody. However, according to those inside the hearings on Thursday, the masked men started seizing those who had return case dates.

City Comptroller Brad Lander, who also observed hearings Thursday nine days after his unceremonious arrest on June 17, confirmed this was the case. 

“What I saw today is worse than times one through four. In every case that we witnessed today, which I think is seven or eight individuals, the judges had granted them hearings,” Lander said. “A young woman who’s here from Guatemala, filed an asylum application and the judge said I’ll grant you a hearing in February of 2027 but nonetheless, in the hallway, on her way out of the courtroom ICE agents detained her. They obviously can’t have had a warrant. … The judge is granting them a hearing and nonetheless, ICE without any rationale whatsoever, is disappearing with them.”

During a one-on-one interview inside immigration court Thursday, Lander told amNewYork that he finds the open display of violence and intimidation disturbing and unlawful. 

“There’s no need for this violent, aggressive theater of disappearance,” Lander said. “When I was here with my wife, a couple from Ecuador, their cases were separate, even though everything about them is the same from a immigration point of view, but for whatever reason, DHS is just removing men. So, that’s a family separation. They stripped him of status. She got her case transferred to Newark at a new court date in the future. When the couple walks out of the courtroom, this gang descends on them. And she says to my wife in Spanish: “Are they going to kill him?”

In one exchange, ICE even threatened to arrest a USA citizen after accusing him of stabbing them with a pen. The man told amNewYork that he was roughed up by the agent, and the pen inside his pocket poked him.

The agents continue to conceal their identities behind masks and facial coverings as New York lawmakers push for federal legislation mandating that ICE officers show their faces while on duty. One of the bill’s sponsors, US Rep. Dan Goldman, had previously compared ICE’s tactics to “gestapo-like behavior.”

ICE isn’t just terrifying immigrants and their representatives; federal workers also say their daily lives have become difficult.

Those who make a living inside 290 Broadway and Federal Plaza say it is frightening to have to constantly deal with dozens of masked men crowding the corridors and whisking strangers away.

“It is terrifying every day,” a man who gave his name as Ryan said.