By NYCLU
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
NEW YORK, NY – In the past week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have violently assaulted multiple people at 26 Federal Plaza, including a mother with young children asking questions about her husband’s disappearance and journalists documenting the actions of agents outside immigration courtrooms. The mother was hospitalized after an ICE agent slammed her to the ground, and one journalist had to be carried out of the federal building on a stretcher.
In response to these violent acts, the New York Civil Liberties Union issued the following statement, attributable to Amy Belsher, Director of Immigrants’ Rights Litigation:
“ICE’s ongoing, brutal violence at 26 Federal Plaza is a deliberate assault on New York’s immigrant communities and the press. ICE agents are ripping families apart, throwing people to the ground, and attacking those who dare to question or document their unlawful actions.
“These ICE agents are acting like the law doesn’t apply to them. But the First Amendment gives the public and press the right to observe, document, and share information about ICE’s conduct — including their unlawful targeting of noncitizens showing up for mandated court hearings. If they are willing to engage in such violence on camera, imagine what happens when no one is watching.
“This abusive treatment of New Yorkers cannot continue or become normalized. We remain undeterred in our fight against ICE’s unlawful conduct at 26 Federal Plaza in court.”
The NYCLU currently has two lawsuits pending against ICE and DHS, including challenges to the unlawful detention conditions at 26 Federal Plaza and the Trump administration’s policy of arresting immigrants attending mandatory court hearings. Materials on those cases can be found here & here.
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