This has become the new normal in America’s immigration courts.
In New York City, especially, courthouse arrests have driven a spike in detentions of undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
Immigration authorities used to stay away from courthouses. They were aware that their presence could scare migrants from engaging with the legal system.
That changed in May when the Trump administration began arresting some immigrants showing up for mandatory court dates so that their deportations could be expedited. The arrests turned the courthouses into places to witness Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown unfold in real time every day.
Masked agents stand sentry outside the courtrooms. Migrants show up for their hearings, not knowing if they’re walking into a trap. The arrests sometimes devolve into volatile tussles in hallways also crowded with news photographers, activists and politicians.
Family members are often left reeling.
“His arrest was like the show of the day,” Porfiria Lopez, one of Mr. Lopez Benitez’s sisters, said. “The question we were left with is: How do they decide who to arrest? Is it chance or just theater?”
Mr. Lopez Benitez, who is from Paraguay, crossed the southern border in May 2023. He was briefly apprehended by border patrol agents in Arizona, placed in deportation proceedings and released into the United States as his case wound through the courts. He traveled to New York, where he reunited with his two sisters, who are U.S. citizens. He lived in Queens, worked in construction and did not have a criminal record, according to his family and his lawyers.
Like many people charged with entering the country unlawfully, Mr. Lopez Benitez showed up regularly for court dates related to his deportation proceedings, a legal process in which an immigration judge decides whether a person who entered illegally should be removed from the country. As part of that process, Mr. Lopez Benitez had applied for asylum, a type of legal protection for immigrants who fear returning to their home countries.
His sisters encouraged her brother to show up to his latest hearing on July 16 at the courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza, despite the arrests taking place there. He arrived with his sisters and the hearing seemed to go well, with the judge scheduling his next hearing for 2029, to hear the merits of his asylum claim.
The distant court date is not uncommon. It is the result of a backlog in the immigration courts, where millions of cases have piled up over years, frustrating Trump officials and leaving many migrants in limbo as their asylum claims are reviewed.
But upon leaving the courtroom, he was surrounded by federal agents, arrested and taken away. He was sent to a crowded holding cell at 26 Federal Plaza for three days before the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency transferred him to a detention facility 1,600 miles away — in Houston.
Mr. Lopez Benitez’s lawyers, who filed a legal motion seeking his release, were puzzled as to why he had been arrested amid his ongoing deportation proceedings. They argued that his detention violated his due process rights, that he did not pose a danger or flight risk and that he should be released while his immigration case plays out.
In legal filings, government lawyers asserted that he was subject to mandatory detention because of his unlawful entry into the country and was not entitled to a bond hearing. They added that his lawyers had failed to show any “extraordinary circumstances” that would warrant his release.
Last week, Mr. Lopez Benitez received a reprieve: A federal judge, Dale E. Ho, ordered that he be released from ICE custody and be sent back to New York while his deportation case proceeds, leaving his abrupt detention all for naught.
On Thursday, two weeks after the detention of Mr. Lopez Benitez, ICE told the family that he would be transferred back to 26 Federal Plaza at about 6 p.m. The agency told them little else.
The building was closed when the sisters showed up, so they circled its perimeter under a drizzling rain until they found an after-hours exit where they hoped their brother would emerge.
They waited, nervously, for about an hour, holding a poster with doodles of Spider-Man, Mr. Lopez Benitez’s favorite superhero, and some greetings: Welcome. We missed you.
They confused a few workers leaving the building for Mr. Lopez Benitez, until they spotted a familiar, towering figure walking toward the exit’s glass doors. The man got closer. He was wearing a white sweatshirt and sweatpants, and was being escorted by two officers.
He got closer still, his unmistakable curly hair coming into focus. It was him.
The sisters rushed toward him, wailing, jumping up and down to embrace him.
Mr. Lopez Benitez sobbed.
One of the two ICE officers stepped aside to watch the reunion. He grew visibly emotional and wished Mr. Lopez Benitez good luck in Spanish.
“This is the good part of the job,” the officer said, before walking away.
Hurubie Meko contributed reporting.
Todd Heisler is a Times photographer based in New York. He has been a photojournalist for more than 25 years.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration in the New York region.
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