When President Trump returned to power, Democratic officials and immigrant communities braced for the prospect of mass raids in New York City, with predictions of roundups at migrant shelters, restaurant kitchens and street corners, and federal agents flooding schools, hospitals and even churches.
But a starkly different reality has emerged in America’s largest city during the first six months of Mr. Trump’s second term. Unlike in Los Angeles and other parts of the country, immigration agents in New York have, for the most part, employed a much simpler strategy.
They have had immigrants come to them.
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Our New York immigration reporter, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, on how an immigration courthouse in Manhattan has become the epicenter of ICE’s crackdown in the city.New federal data shows that half the migrants arrested in the New York City area since Jan. 20 have been detained after being summoned to the federal immigration offices in Manhattan or to the immigration courts there. They come for routine and mandated appearances, with judges typically determining whether someone who is in the country unlawfully can be deported or is eligible for asylum. Instead, in recent months, hundreds of people have been handcuffed without notice, largely out of public view.
As the use of that tactic has accelerated, so have detentions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested at least 2,365 immigrants in the region between late January and the end of June, a nearly 200 percent increase from the five months before Mr. Trump took office, according to the data. The new figures offer the clearest picture yet of the president’s crackdown in the city with the country’s largest immigrant population. Despite that distinction, New York has not topped the list of cities with the most immigrant arrests, even if apprehensions are above Biden-era levels.
