The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an organization that brings together more than 200 entities defending the rights of immigrants and refugees throughout the state, intensified on Tuesday their call to cease all the arrests of immigrants in US immigration cuts.
Nyic reiterated his position after the release of Yoonsoo Go, a South Korean student at the Purdue University, who left ICE custody on Monday, five days after being arrested at a routine audience in the 26th of Federal Plaza, in Lower Manhattan.
Nyic reported that ICE agents arrested Go during their visa audience. Despite having followed the established legal process, Ice sent it to a federal detention center in Louisiana after arresting it on the tenth floor of the Federal Plaza building.
«All families must remain united. We are glad to know that Yeonsoo is now at home, gathered with her family and community, where she belongs, ”said Murad Awawdeh, president and executive director of Nyic, to our sister publication, Caribbean Life. «Yeonsoo’s release comes after a traumatic and unfair detention that should never have happened.
“They stopped simply to comply with what the law demands: to attend its immigration hearing to advance with their application,” Awawdeh added. «The unfair detention of Yososoo is another example of how the Trump administration enhanced its mass deportation machine to criminalize, kidnap and destroy immigrant families.
“ICE aggressive and inhuman operations within the New York Immigration Courts undermine the country’s commitment to due process and the rule of law,” he continued. «ICE must immediately put the operations in cuts and close the detention center on the tenth floor of Federal Plaza.
“All people arrested in the 26th of Federal Plaza and beyond must be released now,” Awawdeh demanded.
At the end of last month, Awawdeh said that a recently published video shows what New York immigrants have been denouncing their families and lawyers for months: «The tenth floor of the 26th of Federal Plaza is an ICE detention center.
“ICE has repeatedly stated that the tenth floor is not subject to Congress supervision because it is classified as a temporary detention center,” he said.
Awawdeh explained that the Undersecretary of the Department of National Security, Tricia McLaughlin, insisted that «26 Federal Plaza is not a detention center. It is a federal building with an ICE office inside ».
However, Awawdeh said the video supports what has been reported from the inside: “People are retained there for days or weeks without showers, medications or change of clothes, sleeping on the ground, with little food and without external contact.”
He pointed out that McLaughlin also stated that “any statement on overcrowding or inappropriate conditions is categorically false.”
However, Awawdeh said the video shows that immigrants arrested on the tenth floor, including many Hispanics, are retained in overcrowding and unhealthiness conditions.
He added that “on May 20, federal agents began to make arrests and make people disappear after they left their immigration audiences in the 26th of Federal Plaza, 290 Broadway and 201 Varick Street.”
On June 8, Awawdeh said congressmen Nydia Velázquez, Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler “were categorically prevented from exercising their legal authority to inspect the detention center after multiple visit attempts.”
Awawdeh explained that all members of Congress have authority to “carry out inspections not announced in detention centers that house people in federal migratory custody,” according to the Public Law of Congress 116-93, Section 405, of 2019 (subsequently coded in the Law of Assignments of the National Security Department of 2025, Section 527.A).
“All New Yorkers should be able to attend their immigration audiences without being separated from their families simply by following the process,” said Awawdeh. «ICE is kidnapping so many people in the New York Migratory Courts that had to create a new detention center on the tenth floor of Federal Plaza.
“But instead of informing the truth to the public, ICE has avoided accountability systematically lying about what happens on the tenth floor and violating the law by not allowing congressmen to inspect the conditions,” he added. «New York deserves justice and transparency in the 26th of Federal Plaza and must be able to attend their audiences without fear of being arrested and missing.
“The detention center of the tenth floor must be immediately closed and subject to regular inspections to ensure that ICE complies with the federal norms established by law,” Awawdeh demanded.
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez said that the tenth floor of the 26th of Federal Plaza has become “the epicenter of the Mass Deportations campaign of the Trump Administration in New York.”
“Since May, ICE has been taking New Yorkers out of the streets and immigration courts to take them to that floor,” he said. “They have affirmed that it is not a detention center, but only a ‘processing center’, to prevent the members of Congress from exercising our legal right of supervision.
“They have also dismissed constant reports on overcrowding and inhuman conditions,” added Velázquez. «This video confirms what we feared for a long time: ICE has lied and blocked us to hide what is happening inside.
«There are no excuses. ICE must immediately allow the entry of the members of Congress to the tenth floor and close this detention center, ”insisted the congresswoman.
Congressman Adriano Espaillat, born in the Dominican Republic, said that the conditions on the tenth floor of Federal Plaza represent “a flagrant violation of human rights and due process.” He said he was deeply alarmed by the recently released video images, where immigrants arrested for ICE is seen sleeping on dirty soils, sharing a single bath between almost 30 people and supporting inhuman treatment.
“The environment in which these people are being held reflects the vision of the Trump administration on immigrants as disposable and further justifies the need to demand supervision and responsibility in these facilities,” he added. “This video demonstrates a moral and legal failure that demands immediate action.”
In June, defenders of Hispanic immigrants and legislators expressed indignation for the arrest of the Comptroller of New York City and candidate for mayor’s mayor, Brad Lander, by ICE agents in the 26th of Federal Plaza, in Bajo Manhattan.
Lander, a firm critic of President Trump’s mass deportation policy, was arrested while trying to accompany an immigrant out of the reach of ICE agents who were in the courts of the Court.
“The arrest of NYC’s comptroller is an abuse of scandalous power and a dangerous obstruction of justice,” Awawdeh denounced. “It is not just an attack against an elected official of our city; it is an attack against all New Yorkers who believe in due process and the fundamental rights of immigrant communities.
“That federal agents arrest and forcefully stop an elected official for escorting an immigrant outside the court is a deliberate attempt to intimidate, silence and criminalize those who defend our immigrant neighbors,” he added.
“At a time when New York immigrants are being kidnapped in broad daylight in our communities, this type of intimidation only deepens fear and uncertainty,” Awawdeh continued. “We demand immediate responses and accountability by the federal government.
“New York City will continue to be a lighthouse of hope, a land of opportunities and a place that defends immigrant communities,” he said.
Governor Kathy Hochul described Lander’s arrest as “an unfortunate day for New York and our country.”
He said he walked through the streets of Little Haiti in Brooklyn “trying to comfort a community that is under siege for a prohibition of travel and the loss of legal status.
“The streets were empty, people were afraid, business were worried about their future, and that was when I learned what happened to my colleague in the government, our comptroller Brad Lander,” he said. “We are also concerned about the situation of those who leave this Court and are separated from their families.
“They have no visibility, they have no lawyers, and that is why the state of New York is allocating 50 million dollars for legal services for those who are in this situation,” added the governor. “We continue doing what is in our hands to support immigration communities and coalitions, and we appreciate their work at the moment.”
