Several protesters outside New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza government building were arrested on Friday for disorderly conduct, with demonstrators accusing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency of operating a covert detention facility there, according to several reports.
Protesters marched to the largest federal immigration courthouse in Manhattan on Friday morning and chanted outside the building. Demonstrators demanded access to the site, which was denied, and they later held a sit-in outside the courthouse, according to Hunter Dunn, the press coordinator for the grassroots protest movement known as 50501.
Within a few minutes the New York City police department moved in to arrest about 15 protesters for disorderly conduct, according to Dunn, as activists could be seen blocking the street.
“No fear, no hate, no Ice in our state!” chanted demonstrators during their march to the site, where Ice agents routinely detain immigrants after immigration court proceedings, in a move that goes against previously normal practice.
“They were entirely peaceful,” Dunn told the Guardian. “It is not wrong to demonstrate against illegal, unconstitutional and immoral actions by the federal government.”
Demonstrators allege detainees are being held in overcrowded conditions without many basic amenities or legal access at 26 Federal Plaza’s 10th floor, where the agency denies it detains people, and are demanding unrestricted access for elected officials, journalists and faith leaders. Friday’s protest was one of several in the city this week.
Last month, footage from inside 26 Federal Plaza shared by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) showed two dozen men in bare rooms, some lying on the floor with emergency blankets and with few basic provisions.
“Just to be a presence, we’re here to say that the American people are opposed to these kinds of policies. And for Ice agents, maybe that will lead some of them to reconsider their career choice,” Jeffrey Courter, the chair of the justice ministries committee of the Presbytery of New York City, told ABC7.
Authorities insist the facility is only a processing center.
Lawmakers have been denied access to the site. In June, Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, was arrested while escorting an immigrant from a hearing.
Several groups, including 50501 and NYIC, as well as faith-based groups, were present at the protest.
Courthouse detentions have become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, which aims to arrest 3,000 people daily. Reports from cities including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago and El Paso, Texas, describe routine court appearances devolving into tense encounters. A newly filed class-action lawsuit seeks to ban the practice of making Ice arrests at immigration courthouses.
