THE 12TH-FLOOR DRAGNET

It is happening right now. right on Broadway, every weekday.

- Portfolio by STEPHANIE KEITH

Undocumented immigrants line up to enter 26 Federal Plaza. They walk to the elevators, pass the death-stare portrait of President Donald Trump, and hit the button for the federal immigration courtrooms located on the 12th and 14th floors. When the doors open, they enter harshly lit hall ways where ICE agents mill around in black balaclavas waiting to take people away. The agents have a list. No one knows how you end up on it. Around the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are carrying out Trump’s promised roundups, staging armed raids designed to create muscular social-media spectacles and rattle cities like New York, where nearly 40 percent of the population is foreign born. Since late spring, though, the strategy in New York has shifted to easier pickings. ICE agents are focusing on the willing and unwitting people who present themselves at three immigration courts, the largest of which is located inside the Federal Plaza building, a 41-story slab of an office tower.