FILE – An ICE agent grabbing hold of an immigrant at 26 Federal Plaza in 2025.
Photo by Dean Moses
Attorney Stephen Kelly, Father Fabian Arias, and other immigrant advocates have filed a legal complaint arguing that ICE activity inside 26 Federal Plaza is restricting lawful First Amendment activity and that the practice should be halted.
According to the complaint, a copy of which amNewYork obtained, the plaintiffs state that 26 Federal Plaza should be open to the public to observe ongoing legal cases. However, the document charges that since masked ICE agents have made the courthouse ground zero in New York for detentions, the public has been effectively excluded unlawfully from being able to attend and observe goings on.
“You’ve got just as much right to be in any of those courtrooms as you have to be on the sidewalk. Actually because all of the controlling law, including just generations and generations of every piece of controlling Supreme Court precedent, makes it absolutely unambiguously clear that you, me, and everybody else has a much greater right to be in that courtroom than we do on any sidewalk,” Kelly told amNewYork during a phone interview. “If they close the sidewalk, there’s, like, it’s not really a loss to society, but if they close a courtroom, the constitutional injury across all of America is just immediate, and it is, it is huge, and it is ultimately devastating.”
The complaint states that members of the public have been prevented from entering courtrooms since 2025, something that the plaintiffs argue is illegal.
Since June, amNewYork has documented ICE activity at 26 Federal Plaza and has observed clerks and security prevent members of the public from entering courtrooms, citing either that the courtrooms were full or that they were not accepting visitors on that date.
According to Kelly, this also extends to the hallways of the 12th and 14th floors, where ICE agents are often seen making rough detentions of those attending their legally mandated court hearings. Members of security usher the public out of the hallways and into the waiting rooms, something Kelly says is also illegal.
“This is a tremendously protected activity that they’re attacking, and with these security guards and these ICE agents running around screaming insults at people,” Kelly said.
The complaint maintains that these rights are being infringed upon so that ICE can carry out their detentions, with the legal filing adding that the federal agents should not be permitted to carry out their often violent detainments due to the safety of the public.
“These unnecessarily violent detention operations are happening, it puts people in danger, people that are just trying to see the courts in operation, that are trying to engage in protected First Amendment activities, they’re being imperiled. They’re being put in serious, physical danger as a result of these just shocking activities,” Kelly said. “It prevents people from being in the courthouse by making it dangerous and hostile is constitutionally impermissible.”
Over the months, amNewYork has observed members of the public being caught up in the arrests, from being pushed to an American citizen appearing to be even being choked. In late September, a journalist was hospitalized after he was shoved to the ground by an ICE agent, his head cracking off the ground.
“When the poor guy’s head hit the ground, it’ll stay with me for the rest of my life,” Kelly added.
It was not always like this. Before ICE took up residence in the hallways, the public had much more free rein. One source reported that the new head immigration court system remarked: “My only job is not to be fired by Trump.”
Soon thereafter, the new restrictions were implemented.
“Even though this government knows how to overwhelm watchdogs, clog up political opposition, and intimidate law firms, we can show that committed communities can still stand up for themselves,” Kelly said.
