Immigrants without lawyers sent to closed courtrooms at 26 Federal Plaza

Immigrants who show up without a lawyer for routine deportation hearings at 26 Federal Plaza have been directed to a different set of courtrooms since Sept. 14. Court observers, journalists and attorneys are not allowed inside.

The rooms sit on the building’s third floor, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security. The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which operates the immigration courts, began assigning the cases there. Some advocates for immigrants and for government transparency now call the setup the “black site docket.”

Why the new immigration courtrooms are closed to the public

EOIR runs the building’s regular immigration courtrooms, which are on two other floors. Under the law and a federal court order from July, those rooms and the courtrooms at 290 Broadway must stay open to the public, apart from certain privacy cases and space limits. On Monday, security guards turned away a journalist who tried to enter one of the third-floor rooms. Later, a DHS police inspector warned that the journalist could be arrested for waiting at the elevator bank outside.

In a statement, EOIR spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly said the agency is making “scheduling adjustments,” including opening new hearing locations as needed, so that every case is handled in a timely and lawful way. Citing agency guidance, she said immigration courtrooms are generally open but can be closed at any time. She offered no other explanation for the private rooms.

Advocates weigh a new legal challenge

Stephen Kelly, the attorney for Access Project NYC, said the group is weighing its legal options. The group is made up of New Yorkers whose lawsuit fought for public access to immigration courts. Kelly said the third-floor rooms look like a way around the July order. “They can’t shuffle bureaucracy and call it compliance,” he said.

So far only a few judges have been assigned cases on the third floor. All of them appear by video and never come into the building. On Monday morning, a single courtroom was sending people upstairs, while many other judges held hearings face to face on floors 12 and 14. Advocates said they had seen no sign that ICE has detained anyone who was sent to the third floor since the rooms opened last week.