When Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, was arrested on Tuesday by federal agents at an immigration courthouse in Manhattan, Mr. Lander said he had simply been trying to escort an immigrant whom agents wanted to detain.
His arrest underscored a trend that has emerged in New York City’s immigration courts: A growing number of volunteers and activists have begun showing up to escort immigrants out of courthouses amid President Trump’s month-old campaign to arrest people showing up for routine hearings.
During the past few weeks, a loose network of immigration activists and advocates has sprung up in the city’s three main immigration courts. Their goal, they say, is to help immigrants who show up without lawyers to navigate a labyrinthine and daunting system, and to accompany migrants past federal officers, who are often masked and not wearing uniforms.
Before, volunteers might have accompanied immigrants to hearings, but only in recent weeks have they had to consider what happens when they leave “because ICE wasn’t waiting on the other side of the door before,” said Camille J. Mackler, the founder and executive director of Immigrant ARC, a collaborative of immigration legal services providers. “We really are just there to bear witness in a nonviolent way.”
Mr. Lander, who is running for mayor, maintained that is what he was trying to do on Tuesday when federal officers approached an immigrant named Edgardo to arrest him. Video shows Mr. Lander appearing to hold on to Edgardo and refusing to let go as officers were trying to arrest the man over Mr. Lander’s protestations.
The Department of Homeland Security saw it differently. The agency accused Mr. Lander of assaulting and obstructing federal officers as they were performing their duties, all to boost his mayoral campaign.
The altercation thrust the work of the volunteer escorts into the national debate about Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, due process rights and the behavior of federal immigration agents.
Why are people accompanying migrants at courthouses?
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency initiated a national operation last month to begin arresting certain immigrants as they leave court hearings.
The new tactic works like this: An immigrant appears for a hearing in an immigration court to determine whether they can lawfully remain in the country. Suddenly, the government prosecutor asks the judge to dismiss the case. The dismissal terminates certain legal protections that the immigrant had, allowing ICE agents in the hallway to apprehend the person and place them in an expedited deportation process.
As ICE began showing up at immigration courts, so did more and more volunteers — activists, faith leaders, lawyers and everyday New Yorkers looking to get involved.
They often provide immigrants, many of whom lack lawyers, with legal guidance, though not necessarily representation. They pass out fliers written in Spanish, French, Arabic and other languages informing them of their rights and explaining the government’s new arrest strategy. And they take down their name, country of origin and case number so that relatives can be contacted if they are detained and to look up where they are being held.
Then, the volunteers try to walk with some migrants — especially those at risk of being arrested because their cases were just dismissed — out of the hearing rooms and past federal officers.
“They are armed, and a lot of them are masked,” said Allison Cutler, an immigration lawyer at the New York Legal Assistance Group, which provides legal help to low-income people, including immigrants. “People are terrified as soon as they step foot out of the elevator.”
What can federal agents do?
ICE officers are responsible for detaining noncitizens who are violating federal immigration laws. But federal officers are generally permitted to arrest anyone who attempts to obstruct an arrest, which is a federal crime.
“We can’t have anyone interfering with our ICE arrest operations,” Todd Lyons, the ICE acting director, told Fox News after Mr. Lander’s arrest.
“We’ve always said that if anyone impedes our arrest operations, no matter who you are, you will be taken into custody,” Mr. Lyons said.
As of Wednesday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which had said it was reviewing the incident, had not brought charges against Mr. Lander.
Asked about volunteers accompanying people in immigration courts, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for D.H.S., said, “Anyone who actively obstructs or assaults law enforcement, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.”
Have the volunteers prevented arrests?
The main goal of accompanying immigrants, volunteers say, is to provide comfort and safety to people who are often afraid of showing up in court, especially during the string of arrests, and to make sure they are not alone if they are detained.
It is difficult to gauge whether volunteers are deterring ICE agents from moving in for arrests. Before he was detained, Mr. Lander had shown up at the courts twice and escorted out immigrant families who appeared at risk of arrest after their cases were dismissed, walking them by federal agents.
“Does this excessive accompaniment mean that somebody didn’t get detained?” Ms. Mackler, the leader of Immigrant ARC, said. “Obviously, we would love for that to be the outcome, but more important, the goal would be to make sure that the person isn’t alone.”
Federal agents have continued to arrest immigrants even when they are surrounded by volunteers, occasionally leading to volatile altercations between the officers and activists.
Mr. Lander had been appearing at immigration court in conjunction with Immigrant ARC. Ms. Mackler said that her organization had trained volunteers not to act in a way that would provoke or escalate a situation with law enforcement officers.
“Our instructions for our volunteers are to not engage or interfere with law enforcement,” she said. “But I’m also not going to tell a New York City elected official how he shows up to protect New Yorkers.”
Who else is showing up at the courts?
Immigration courts — which are operated by a branch of the Department of Justice called the Executive Office for Immigration Review — are open to the public.
In recent weeks, they have attracted more immigration lawyers looking to help migrants who do not have attorneys and members of the public who observe and document court proceedings to ensure transparency and accountability.
Visitors are generally allowed to sit in during hearings after passing through metal detectors in the lobbies of the three Manhattan courthouses that have immigration courts.
Judges can close certain proceedings to the public, especially those involving people who are sharing sensitive personal information during asylum hearings.
Democratic politicians have descended on the courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza, which also houses ICE offices where detained immigrants have sometimes been held for days in overcrowded conditions.
On Wednesday, Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Dan Goldman, both Democrats, sought to conduct an oversight visit to the 10th floor but were denied access by the ICE deputy field office director, William Joyce.
“Because we were told not to,” Mr. Joyce told the congressmen during an exchange in the lobby.
“We will continue to go up the chain, and we will get answers,” Mr. Goldman later said at a news conference.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region.
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