Five Days In Immigration Court

"This is fishing in a stocked pool. You tell them, 'Show up at this location,' and then they show up and you grab them,” one federal agent involved with immigration court arrests told HuffPost.

NEW YORK — Ahmed knew he faced arrest if he continued to sit in the waiting room outside Courtroom 34, on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza. The man sitting across from him told him so.

The man, a concerned federal worker who’d come to immigration court in his free time and compared ICE officers to Nazi Gestapo, had practically begged Ahmed, who is being identified by a pseudonym to protect his privacy, to stand up and walk out of the room with him.

“You didn’t bring any water?” the man whispered, suggesting Ahmed leave with him to get a drink. He overturned his pointer and middle fingers, scurrying them along his palm to mime Ahmed leaving the room.

Since late May, federal agents have swarmed immigration courts across the country, arresting people who show up to their appointments, pass through metal detectors and identify themselves by name in open hearings. It was my fifth day attending court, and I’d seen plenty of these arrests already.

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