Starting in late May, New York City’s immigrants were forced into making an impossible choice. If they showed up for a court date or immigration check-in, they risked being arrested by ICE agents as part of President Trump’s crackdown, sent into a detention vacuum and deported. But if they skipped those appointments, they became “criminals” and subject to deportation anyway.
THE CITY’s Gwynne Hogan was the first reporter on the scene at 26 Federal Plaza, where such harrowing incidents played out daily. Law-abiding immigrants and asylum seekers showing up for what they thought would be a routine proceeding, only to be swiftly arrested, separated from loved ones on the spot and whisked away to ICE facilities.
As the courthouse blitz continued, THE CITY knew we had to do more than just report on individual arrests. We had to assemble an account of how pervasive the practice was and the conditions of detention hidden from the public. And that’s what Hogan, with the help of data reporter Haidee Chu, accomplished in a series of groundbreaking articles that established facts on the ground and directly led to improved conditions.
