Asylum seekers arrested after “traps” hearings in New York

Masked, armed, they prowl in the courts in the courts: American agents arrest asylum seekers at the end of “traps” audiences in New York, a sign that the Trump administration campaign against immigration knows no respite.

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The American president erected the fight against illegal immigration in absolute priority. Meanwhile, evoking an “invasion” of the United States by “criminals from abroad” and abundantly publishing the press releases concerning the expulsions of immigrants.

But his massive expulsion program was thwarted. Moreover, slowed down by multiple court decisions, in particular on the grounds that the people targeted should be able to assert their rights.

In recent months. asylum seekers arrested after “traps” internal security agents have adopted a tactic of waiting, the face often covered with a mask, in front of the courtrooms of the immigration courts and to arrest migrants as soon as they leave it.

An AFP photographer saw armed agents in a New York court on Wednesday. Thursday with shields and employees by various federal agencies, including border and immigration police (ICE), prowl before the audience rooms with documents on targeted migrants.

Agents arrested nearly a dozen migrants from different countries in just a few hours at 12^e Floor of a. federal building located in the south of Manhattan.

Brad Lander. the city’s financial controller and a figure of the local branch of the Democratic Party who was also briefly arrested and handcuffed last month for “hindrance” to agents on the spot, qualified these audiences as “traps”.

“It seems to be judicial hearings. but these are in fact traps asylum seekers arrested after “traps” to encourage [les migrants] To go to the scene, “he said on the spot on Wednesday, reporting on several arrests, notably that of a Paraguayan whose asylum application was, according to him, under examination.

“The judge carefully explained to him how to present his file. in order to provide additional information on his interactions with the Paraguayan police and to justify his right to asylum under the international convention against torture,” he said.

After his hearing. people “without mandate or badge allowing them to identify them caught it”, he said, adding that agents have placed the sister of this asylum seeker on the ground, who accompanied him at the hearing, and denouncing “erosion” of the rule of law in the United States.

Migrants arrested in these operations are most often imprisoned in ICE retention centers while waiting for their possible expulsion. from the United States. In recent months. the authorities asylum seekers arrested after “traps” have opened new establishments of the genre, including “Alcatraz of alligators”, which is in the middle of swamps in Florida.