Law 360: Judges Warn ICE Is Turning Courts Into Deportation Traps

Law 360: Judges Warn ICE Is Turning Courts Into Deportation Traps

• September 5, 2025
• 3:30 pm

NYLAG immigration attorneys Allison Cutler and Benjamin Remy spoke with Law 360 about the violent, extrajudicial arrests they've witnessed in growing numbers over the course of the last several months at 26 Federal Plaza. Immigration judges are now also sounding the alarm on ICE's arrest tactics within the courts:

"Historically, having your case dismissed was great." the unnamed New York immigration judge said. "But in this kind of new world, it means that ICE is still interested in you - but now as a subject of the expedited proceeding - which of course entitles them to detain you pretty much without too much recourse."

[…]

Attorneys with New York Legal Assistance Group, a legal aid nonprofit organization, told Law360 that ICE officers during the arrests sometimes manhandle people who have just stepped out of a courtroom.

"We've seen people being arrested violently," said Allison Cutler, a supervising attorney at NYLAG. During an arrest last month, ICE officers pushed chairs to the side in a waiting area adjacent to courtroom 34 and then tackled a man to the ground. An officer placed his knee on the immigrant's back, forcefully placing handcuffs on him and causing bleeding from his wrists, apparently because it was done incorrectly, she said.

Benjamin Remy, another lawyer at NYLAG, told Law360 that arresting people at court hearings is only the first step in a fast-tracked journey of deportation.

Respondents are seized at the courthouse and quickly sent to ICE immigration facilities across the country, often in Texas and Louisiana. Their pending immigration cases are then transferred to immigration courts in those states, where judges are less sympathetic to migrants and more likely to issue deportation orders, he said.

"It's very purposeful, very orchestrated," Remy said. "They know exactly what they are doing."

[…]

Melissa Chua, the co-director of NYLAG's Immigrant Protection Unit, told Law360 that noncitizens seized in the buildings' hallways are detained in makeshift holding cells for days at a time, and then sent to detention facilities out of state, often without any opportunity to contact legal counsel.

In a series of habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of noncitizens detained at immigration court hearings, NYLAG attorneys have argued that those people have a right to an individualized assessment by a court to determine whether there is a need to detain them.

Read the full story, originally published in Law 360 on September 5, 2025.

Related Articles