ICE Arrests Three at NYC Immigration Courts, in First Documented Violations of June 24 Nationwide Injunction

Between June 26 and June 30, 2026, ICE agents arrested three men at New York City immigration courts — an Ecuadorian man at 26 Federal Plaza, and men from the Dominican Republic and Guatemala at 290 Broadway — in what advocates identified as the first documented violations of a June 24, 2026 nationwide injunction that had reinstated pre-2025 limits barring civil-immigration arrests at courthouses. All three had appeared as summoned for their legally mandated hearings; all three were transferred to detention. Make the Road New York filed emergency legal papers; ICE denied violating any order without citing which exception it claimed applied. Judge Kevin Castel’s stay had prohibited federal agents from arresting immigrants attending court hearings absent a criminal predicate.

This is a discrete instance of the pattern the timeline tracks as ICE treating adverse court orders as advisory rather than binding — the enforcement arm acting past the point where a court has said stop. It sits directly in the documented ICE-defies-the-judiciary cluster: the New Jersey criminal-contempt findings against ICE transfers (2026-03-03–new-jersey-judge-farbiarz-criminal-contempt-ice-transfers), the Minnesota chief judge’s contempt threat over 96 violations (2026-02-26–chief-judge-schiltz-criminal-contempt-threat-ice-96-violations), the re-detention of a 77-year-old Palestinian in defiance of a federal judge (2026-06-10–ice-defies-federal-judge-redetains-77yo-palestinian-omar-louisiana), and Judge Bryan’s contempt holding over transfer violations (2026-02-24–judge-bryan-holds-government-contempt-ice-transfer-violations). The open leads: which field office and supervisors authorized the arrests, whether DOJ was aware, and whether emergency habeas follows for the three detained men.