Nearly Two Dozen Protesters Arrested Outside NYC Immigration Court, NYPD Says

NEW YORK CITY — More than 20 protesters were arrested outside a Lower Manhattan courthouse Wednesday night after ICE agents detained multiple migrants.

Twenty-three people were taken into custody outside the U.S. Immigration Court on Varick Street near West Houston Street, police confirmed.

According to reports, an immigrant family was taken into ICE custody inside the courthouse before protesters clashed with police.

The demonstrators attempted to block the path of the two vans that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were using to transport the detained migrants, according to the New York Post.

Footage from the scene show protesters wrestled to the ground, pepper sprayed and handcuffed by officers.

“ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens in expedited removal, as they always should have been,” ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson told THE CITY. “If they have a valid credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, aliens will be subject to a swift deportation.”

Murad Awawdeh of the New York Immigration Coalition told NY1 that ICE "is trying to entrap people, asking for cases to be dismissed so they can arrest them immediately after in the courthouse."

The protest come one week after a 20-year-old Venezuelan national and public school student from the Bronx was arrested by ICE agents, Patch previously reported.