ICE provided false information to justify taking migrants into custody in NYC, court filings say

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Mar 25, 2026

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NEW YORK — Lawyers for ICE provided false information to federal prosecutors to justify seizing thousands of people seeking asylum and lawful immigration status in the U.S. at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan and other immigration courts, the U.S. attorney’s office said in new court filings.

The extraordinary revelation by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton’s office came in a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and various civil rights groups and community organizations, which challenges federal immigration authorities’ practice of targeting people for deportation at the lower Manhattan facility when migrants leave immigration court hearings.

It was not immediately clear how the startling admission would affect immigration court arrests and pending cases amid the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation efforts.

“The implications of this development are far-reaching,” NYCLU attorney Amy Belsher wrote Wednesday to Manhattan Federal Judge Kevin Castel, who is overseeing the suit against ICE.

“In the months since the Court relied on the government’s representation to deny Plaintiffs preliminary relief, Defendants have continued arresting noncitizens at their immigration court hearings, resulting in their detention—often in facilities hundreds of miles away.”

Thousands have been ambushed by masked ICE agents at 26 Federal Plaza while walking out of immigration court hearings and held in custody at the complex over the past year, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project.

Alerting the court to the issue late Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tomoko Onozawa said an attorney for ICE had informed the office that a May 2025 ICE memo that prosecutors had heavily relied on to defend the government in the lawsuit “does not and has never authorized” civil immigration enforcement actions in or near immigration courts, after the agency previously claimed otherwise.

Telling Castel the Justice Department would withdraw previous briefs that relied on the memo, Onozawa said there were opinions he issued that would need to be reconsidered and re-briefed.

“We deeply regret that this error has come to light at this late stage, after the parties have expended significant resources and time to litigate this case and this Court has carefully considered Plaintiffs’ challenge to the 2025 ICE Guidance. This error, however, was not caused by a lack of diligence and care by the undersigned attorneys,” Onozawa wrote. “The undersigned were specifically informed by ICE that the 2025 ICE Guidance applied to immigration courthouse arrests.”

In their letter to the judge Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs asked for two weeks to respond to the government filing and described the admission as hugely consequential.

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