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ICE’s Spectacle of Intimidation

Immigrants showing up for court dates in Manhattan must now navigate past rows of masked federal agents.
A man wearing a police vest looms over another man.
A federal agent takes a man into custody at 26 Federal Plaza. Dozens of people have hearings in New York’s immigration courts each day, and now face the possibility of being arrested just by showing up, regardless of the status of their cases.Redux

Since the spring, at the federal courthouses in downtown Manhattan, hundreds of officers from ICE and other government agencies have lined the hallways and lobbies, waiting to detain some migrants as they leave their immigration hearings. Many of the agents are masked and armed, and they are dressed in tactical gear, even though all visitors to the buildings must pass through airport-­level security.

Groups of agents, mostly masked men, wait for hearings to let out on the fourteenth floor of 26 Federal Plaza.

Dozens of observers, migrant advocates, and members of the press show up each day to witness the arrests, which often take place with little regard for due process. It might not even matter how a judge rules in someone’s case. Migrants seem to be in shock as agents approach; family members might scream or sob as their loved one is taken away.

Portraits of President Donald Trump and Vice-President J. D. Vance hang in the lobby of 290 Broadway.
An ICE agent wearing a “Defend Liberty” T-shirt takes into custody a man who has just walked out of his court hearing at 26 Federal Plaza. Photo and video journalists can work only in the hallways outside the courtrooms.

The photographer Mark Peterson spent several weeks this summer documenting such scenes at Federal Plaza. “It’s an image that I imagine the Administration wants out there—these guys, fully armed and masked and with body armor, arresting people,” he said. “The government is obviously looking at what pictures people are making.” Peterson has come to understand the rhythms of the place. Sometimes the agents make small talk while waiting for hearings to let out. One asked Peterson about the type of camera he uses. Others nicknamed one of his colleagues the goat after they learned that she had won a prestigious photography award.

Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, and Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, talk to a D.H.S. agent at 26 Federal Plaza. Lander, an unsuccessful candidate for mayor in this year’s Democratic primary, was detained in June after escorting a migrant out of his hearing and refusing to let go of the man’s arm when agents tried to take him away.
ICE agents at the courthouses tend to be armed. The halls and waiting rooms are eerily quiet as the agents survey the migrants in attendance.
A protester outside holds posters of detainees bearing the question, in Spanish, “WHERE ARE THEY?”

Caught in the middle are the ordinary people—the single men, the young couples, the little children made to walk through this state-sponsored spectacle of intimidation. Peterson’s black-and-white images, heavy with flash and shadows, evoke film noir and the urban-crime photography of the nineteen-thirties and forties. “If someone is doing everything right, and then they still get detained, it’s a crime scene,” Peterson said. A growing number of migrants are now skipping their court dates altogether—and setting themselves up for deportation—because they would rather go into hiding than face the danger and humiliation that Federal Plaza may bring. One can only imagine that this, too, is part of the point.

—Jordan Salama

Immigration advocates and lawyers are increasingly advising migrants with young children to bring them to the courthouse, knowing that the majority of people arrested are single adults, mostly men.