“They treated us like animals”

Monica Moreta Galarza felt relieved after the routine hearing of her husband’s immigration on the 26th Federal Plaza in New York.

A judge ordered Ruben Abellardo Ortiz Lopez to return to court in May, and she believes that it means restoring from his potential deportation to Ecuador.

Instead, as soon as they came out of the courtroom with their children, She was detached from her husband’s hands and thrown to the ground by immigration officers as they detained him.

“One of them loaded me so aggressively that I was horrified, and he eventually threw me to the ground,” Gaja Galarza told BBC News Mundo in Spanish. “They treated us like animals.”

The incident, which has since become viral, has led to a temporarily suspended immigration agent. But this is not an isolated phenomenon. The BBC witnessed such incidents in the courtroom, while others – including an aggressive meeting between immigration and customs law enforcement (ICE) and the media – caused a public protest.

ICE operations in the building have created a loaded, tense environment, lawyers said.

“I would honestly summarize it as just traumatic,” says Alison Cutler, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Group in New York (NYLAG), who works on 26 Federal Plaza.

“This is traumatic for the customers we serve, for the families are torn.”

While many detention of 26 Federal Plaza is fast and inspired, reporters and lawyers have witnessed several chaotic episodes in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, in late August, the BBC was watching a dozen officers waiting outside the courtroom descending a man, two women and a little boy. They quickly detained the man and melle came as the group struggled to stay together.

The crying woman clinging to the detained man was pulled out by a federal officer – who looked the same man who pulled the galarias from her husband – as the man was extracted.

The judge closed the courtroom and as a result, the BBC could not check the case details. The Ministry of Interior Security (DHS) did not provide details about the man’s current status, but said the agency “assumes its responsibility to seriously protect children.”

They added that ICE allows parents to be removed with their children or to place them with a particular person.

After the images of the incident with di -seas Galarza spread to social media, DHS reported that the employee involved in the incident was disciplined.

After that, last week, immigration officers were filmed on video, inserting two journalists on the ground as they tried to document a possible detention. One of the journalists could not get up and was transported to the hospital.

“Nothing like this has happened to journalists before,” Olga Fedorova told BBC, the other photojournalist thrown to the floor. G -ja Fedorova often reports from the building and says that before the incident, “we were able to work with federal agents around federal agents without incidents 99% of the time.”

DHS spokesman Tricia Mclaughlin told the BBC in a statement that employees were arrested when they were “sunk by agitators and press members that impeded operations.”

McChaflin said that “employees have repeatedly told the crowd agitators and journalists to return, move and get out of the elevator.”

Chaotic meetings with civil servants have played repeatedly in the bottom building of Manhattan this year, as immigration courts are becoming key sites of a mass deportation initiative ordered by the Trump administration.

Half of the 3320 Ice immigrants detained in the New York region between Trump’s inauguration and the end of July were arrested at 26 federal plaza, according to data obtained from the deportation project. The figures suggest that immigration courts and the offices of the building are the main driver of plans to deport the administration in the largest city in America.

About three -quarters of people arrested on 26 federal plaza, as Trump’s inauguration has not had past criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, according to the draft deportation draft.

Employees routinely withdraw numerous detainees from their hearing without giving them a chance to talk to lawyers.

“We’ve never seen anything like that,” says Benjamin Remy, a Nilag lawyer who spends several days a week working with immigrants on Federal Plaza.

Many immigrants no longer appear in court, he said. In an August hearing, a man with a criminal record did not appear. Therefore, the judge ordered him to remove him from the country and discard his case for asylum.

His visit may not have changed the result; The implementation of immigration was also collected outside this courtroom.

Ungrafted in the United States without a visa or such documentation have always been the subject of removal, said Trisia Claxton, a controlling lawyer with a safe passage, a group of immigration rights focused on minors.

“There were concentrated efforts on those who may have had a criminal history or previous arrests,” said G -Ja Claxton, whose clients appear most to avoid retention.

But now, she said, it seems that this network has expanded.

“You see many people who are in the process – they have hanging asylum requests, they have other forms of relief – they are still accepted,” said G -Ja Claxton.

Legal experts say this is an abuse of the courts system and puts immigrants in an impossible position. If they appear for court hearings as instructed to do, they could be arrested. But if they jump over the court’s date, a judge can automatically arrange his deportation.

The government claims it has a wide authority to detain the people who are in the US illegally.

The administration says it removes dangerous criminals from the country, and the White House and the Ministry of Homeland Security often dispose of arrests and detention of undocumented migrants with a violent criminal history.

It says arrests in the immigration court for safety reasons.

“DHS operations are highly directed and employees are making their diligence. We know who we are targeting a while ago,” said an agency official in a statement to the BBC.

A poll of the New York Times/Siena found that the bigger part of the respondents, 54%, support the deportation of people who are illegal here. More than half (51%) believe the government is aimed at right people.

In the case of Ruben Abellardo Ortis Lopez, whose wife, Gaja Galarza, was pushed on the floor, the government says he was a violent criminal and that he was justified to arrest him in court.

Ortis Lopez entered the country illegally on March 20, 2024 and was wanted after being arrested on June 18 for “attack and criminal obstruction of the respiratory tract or blood”.

“President Trump and the Secretary (of the Homeland Security Christie) will not allow criminal illegal aliens to terrorize US citizens,” the statement added.

“If you come to our country illegally and violate your laws, we will arrest you and you will never return.”

But for the gaul, the Galalarza incident in the Court of Justice reminded her of the injustices she says she fled Ecuador in her home country.

“I suffered a lot in my country. I had no protection and the authorities there were not interested,” she says BBC News Mundo.

She added that she never thought the same would happen to her in the United States.

“It’s very ugly. I feel like I’m useless now.”