Friend –

For over a year we've witnessed ICE's intimidation and cruelty at immigration courthouses, ambushing immigrant New Yorkers arriving for their required appearances and arresting them.

We've seen ICE separate families, snatch students, and intimidate and attack their loved ones – just for trying to have their day in court.

Now, in a major victory, we just won an order that largely stops ICE from making arrests at immigration courthouses in New York City.

While our case proceeds, the court order stops ICE from making most kinds of arrests at the immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, where we have seen some of the worst and most publicized offenses by ICE. It comes after ICE shockingly admitted it had been relying on internal policies that never even applied to immigration courts in order to justify its sweeping courthouse arrests.

We brought this lawsuit with our co-counsel at ACLU, Make the Road NY, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward Maazel LLP, suing on behalf of the organizations The Door and African Communities Together. Our case continues, but this order is an important victory for immigrants in New York City who are simply trying to follow the required immigration process.

Want to learn more about how ICE has weaponized courthouses? Read our explainer.

You can also learn more about the personal toll the Trump regime's campaign of cruelty at courthouses has taken by understanding the experience of our teenage client who was taken at a Buffalo courthouse and whose release ultimately we won.

With your support, we'll keep up our fight for immigrant New Yorkers.

NYCLU Team