Earlier this month in downtown Manhattan, on the second floor of a deli near Federal Plaza, a twenty-eight-year-old named Mercedes waited anxiously as she prepared for the possibility of her arrest. She was with her eleven-year-old daughter, Jhuliana, who had just finished sixth grade in the Bronx, and her toddler, who was born in New York shortly after Mercedes and Jhuliana crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, in the summer of 2023. The young family sat at a table near a waist-high glass railing that overlooked the cash registers on the first floor, and watched as uniformed men from the Department of Homeland Security filed in and out for coffee and breakfast. “I saw on TikTok the other day that some guys from ICE came into a restaurant and sent everyone running, but they were just getting something to eat,” Mercedes said, laughing nervously. Her toddler, who was almost two, leaned over the railing and called out to the agents in baby gibberish, but the agents did not acknowledge her. “Come, come here!” Mercedes said, and the child ran back into her arms.
It was just before eight in the morning. At nine, Mercedes was scheduled to appear for a “master hearing” in her immigration case. A master hearing is typically the first court hearing in such a case, during which the judge explains respondents’ rights and responsibilities, takes pleadings, and sets a date for a future hearing, at which point respondents with claims to asylum can present any evidence. But, since the spring, federal agents have been lining the hallways and lobbies of the government buildings at 26 Federal Plaza, 290 Broadway, and 201 Varick Street, waiting to arrest migrants as soon as they step out of the courtroom. Initially, in what was perhaps the most commonly observed setup, D.H.S. lawyers would request that respondents’ immigration cases be dismissed; the Department of Justice has encouraged its immigration judges to grant those requests quickly, allowing for migrants’ rapid detention and deportation by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents waiting outside. Now many migrants are being detained regardless of the status of their case. “I just can’t in good faith advise someone to go to Federal Plaza,” Nuala O’Doherty-Naranjo, a New York-based immigration lawyer who is also a well-known community organizer in Queens, told me, just a few days before Mercedes’s scheduled appearance. “Two weeks ago, I would have said maybe. But now? No way.”
After the Trump Administration began making arrests at the courthouses, a couple of months ago, an anti-deportation advocacy group called New Sanctuary Coalition started sending observers to accompany migrants to their federal hearings. “We don’t believe that anyone should be deported,” a Ph.D. student and New Sanctuary volunteer named Brian told me when he arrived at the deli, a little before 8:30 A.M. Brian, who didn’t speak Spanish, handed Mercedes a Know Your Rights flyer. I translated as he asked her to sign a privacy waiver authorizing New Sanctuary to access her information and records in case of her detainment by ICE.