Latest news with #MuradAwawdeh
The Hill
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Video reveals conditions in Manhattan immigration court holding cells
LOWER MANHATTAN, N.Y. (WPIX) — A newly released video from inside the holding cells at Manhattan's immigration court is raising more concern over how federal immigration authorities are treating detainees. Obtained by the New York Immigration Coalition, the video shows dozens of men crammed into a single room, sleeping on the floor with limited basic necessities and hygiene accommodations. The facility, located in Lower Manhattan, was originally intended to hold individuals for less than 24 hours while they awaited transfer to larger detention centers. However, advocates have reported that people are being confined there for up to two weeks. 'This is just one room of dozens,' said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. 'The video illustrates what we've been saying for months — ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are using 26 Federal Plaza as a detention center in the most inhumane and cruel way possible.' Immigration advocates and elected officials have long expressed concern about the treatment of individuals detained at the courthouse — many of whom were arrested after showing up for legal asylum or green card hearings. Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat who represents Lower Manhattan, has pressed for a congressional oversight visit to the facility. He cited numerous anecdotal accounts of detainees being held for extended periods without access to clean clothing, adequate meals, or medical care. 'The conditions in this facility are worse than what you'd find in a jail housing a convicted murderer,' said Goldman. 'One meal a day. No change of clothes. It's hot. It stinks. The plumbing is insufficient. And there's no medical care. Some have reportedly been held more than eight days.' Despite these claims, the Department of Homeland Security denies any wrongdoing or that the facility is used for anything more than brief holds. In a statement, the DHS said: 'Any claim that there is overcrowding or subprime conditions at ICE facilities are categorically false. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.'
CBS News
23-07-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Video shows conditions inside NYC's ICE processing center at 26 Federal Plaza
New video offers a first glimpse inside a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center at New York City's 26 Federal Plaza. It's an area members of Congress have been trying to access for weeks as they have been hearing complaints that immigrants are allegedly being held there for days under deplorable conditions. Newly released video provided by New York Immigration Coalition and verified by CBS News New York shows conditions on the 10th floor of the building. It's not clear when the video was taken. The person taking the video is heard saying, "Look how they have us here like dogs." The video shows a group of men in a room with no furniture. Many appear to be laying or sitting on towels or foil blankets on the floor. There are two toilets behind half walls in the back of the room, but one toilet appears to be covered with a foil blanket. "In the video, you see over two dozen men, some sleeping on the floor, all having to share one bathroom," New York Immigration Coaliation President and CEO Murad Awawdeh said. Benjamin Remy, senior staff attorney with New York Legal Assistance Group, said that video was the first time he's seen what the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza looks like. "What was your initial reaction when you saw that?" CBS News New York's Alice Gainer asked. "I would like to say it was shock, but it wasn't," Remy said. One woman told CBS News her husband was detained and spent five or six days on the 10th floor before being transferred. "He said it was very bad. They treated them like animals, technically," she said. "They don't give him enough food. Um, his liver is, you know, failing because he's supposed to be on a specific diet and he's supposed to be taking a specific medication. But no matter how much times he requested from the officers, they never gave it to him." Remy said for more than a month, he's been hearing about the conditions from people who have spent anywhere from two to 20 days there. "Not having an actual safe place to sleep, not receiving adequate medical care and in medical emergencies, being refused that medical care," Remy said. "The food is, first of all, insufficient, and then of incredibly poor quality." Attorneys and advocates say people showing up for routine immigration hearings are being detained. "Why are you detaining them when they're following the process?" Awawdeh said. "They're being penalized for it by being summarily detained with no transparency," Remy said. ICE has not responded to CBS News New York's request for comment. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin sent CBS News New York a statement reading, in part: "Any claim that there is overcrowding or subprime conditions at ICE facilities are categorically false. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. As we arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens and public safety threats from the U.S., ICE has worked diligently to obtain greater necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding. Secretary Noem has called on states and local government to help with bed and detention space capacity. "Despite a historic number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly overtime to remove these aliens from detentions centers to their final destination—home."
The Intercept
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
'Are We At Risk?' Wave of ICE Arrests Strikes Fear in Iranian Communities
The brief war between Israel, Iran, and the United States appears to be over for now. But for many Iranian immigrants to the United States, a new period of uncertainty is just beginning. A wave of detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sparked fear in Iranian communities across the country, amid heightened international tensions spurred by President Trump's decision to join Israel's bombardment of Iran. Among those recently detained are avowed foes of the current Iranian government, including Christian asylum-seekers, former protesters who fled repression, and aging immigrants who have called the U.S. their home for over 40 years, according to news reports, immigration advocates, and attorneys who spoke with The Intercept. 'What ICE has done is essentially look at the geopolitical situation and say, 'Okay, we need to go after Iranians'' More than 130 Iranian nationals have been arrested or detained in the three weeks since Israel launched its 12-day war with Iran on June 13. The Trump Administration has justified this sudden surge by invoking fears of 'sleeper cells' plotting attacks on behalf of the Islamic Republic, according to reporting by Fox News. 'We're seeing Iranians with varying immigration statuses, including green cards, being detained across the country,' said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition. 'They're targeting folks who have followed the process, who have done what the government told them to do in navigating the immigration system.' In the three-year period between October 2021 and November 2024, ICE arrested just 165 Iranian nationals, according to the most recent available statistics. According to Fox News, the total number of Iranians in ICE custody stood at 670 late last month, including the 130 new detainees. Multiple advocates and attorneys who spoke with The Intercept said they expect that number has only increased in the past week. ICE did not respond to a request for comment, nor to a question about the number of Iranians currently in government detention. The Department of Homeland Security last week trumpeted the arrest of 11 Iranian nationals whose only unifying factor was their shared national heritage. Some had criminal charges — decades old, in some cases — and others had irregularities in their immigration status that ICE claimed made them eligible for deportation. DHS claimed one of the detainees admitted having ties to Hezbollah, but the department did not elaborate on what those ties entailed. The wave of arrests came as first Israel and later the United States carried out airstrikes on military and scientific targets linked to Iran's nuclear program. Israel also carried out targeted assassination strikes and car bombings in dense residential neighborhoods across Iran over the course of the conflict. Iran retaliated with ballistic missile attacks on Israel. Though Fox News noted that the administration was conducting the raids in hopes of disrupting 'sleeper cells,' there has been no evidence to back up those claims. There was no indication from DHS and ICE that any of the detainees were picked up due to any actual intelligence on plots against the United States. 'What ICE has done is essentially look at the geopolitical situation and say, 'Okay, we need to go after Iranians,'' said Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council. 'And how they're doing that is essentially sorting by national origin and then looking for cases of individuals where there's some uncertainty on their status.' Read Our Complete Coverage 'It's basically 'The national heritage of Iranians means you're guilty of something, and we'll figure out what that is later,'' Costello said. The detentions have kindled fear among Iranian immigrants and Iranian Americans that they could be next, according to Curtis Morrison, an attorney in California who works extensively with Iranian clients. Speaking with The Intercept on Tuesday afternoon, Morrison said he had just moments ago gotten off the phone with an Iranian client calling in a panic despite having been granted asylum. 'He's asking 'Are we at risk?' And I was like, 'Yes,'' Morrison said. 'It's a really awkward conversation to have.' A number of the people recently detained by ICE had previously been released by ICE after passing a so-called 'credible fear' interview, a stage in the asylum application process in which immigration authorities assess the basis for a claim, according to Jonathan Aftalion, an attorney based in Los Angeles. Aftalion said he has at least one client currently in detention who fears for his life if the Trump administration makes good on its intention to deport him back to Iran. 'This is a guy who is about to be sent back to a regime that is in turmoil, and he is very clearly a political dissident,' Aftalion said. 'If you're clearly a political dissident, and [the Iranian government] has knowledge of that — this is a very harsh regime, and you're essentially going back to your death.' During the Biden administration, approximately 1,200 Iranian nationals were taken into immigration custody then released, according to Trump border czar Tom Homan. Many of those people could now face deportation. Now that Trump is ramping up attempts to send deportees to countries other than their nation of origin, their possible destinations are uncertain. While the timing of the recent uptick in detentions coincides with U.S. tensions with Tehran, it comes after of years during which the U.S. government placed additional burdens on Iranians hoping to immigrate to the United States, according to Aftalion. Under the first Trump administration, and during the later part of the Biden administration, Iranians had to jump through extra hoops to enter the United States or to prove their credible-fear claims, Aftalion said. 'There has been a lot that the Iranian community has had to go through, and it didn't just start with Trump and the tensions between Israel, Iran, and the U.S.,' Aftalion said. 'Iranians have not been getting a fair shake for years now, and it's just been amplified at this time.' For many, however, that amplification has been sudden, and severe. In Louisiana, masked ICE agents arrived on the doorstep of Mandonna 'Donna' Kashanian, 64, and took her into custody. Kashanian came to the United States in 1978 and, despite losing an asylum claim, was given a stay of removal. She has lived here ever since and checked in regularly with immigration authorities, and she has a spouse and a daughter who are both U.S. citizens. In Los Angeles, ICE called a family of Christian asylum-seekers in for a meeting, then took them into custody and transferred them to a detention center in Texas, ICE records show. The family's lawyer, Kaveh Aradalan, told NBC that he has another five clients seeking asylum who have been detained recently. And in Buffalo, unidentified agents have been camping out near the home of an Iranian dissident, prompting neighbors to organize to protect the man against deportation, according to a report in the Investigative Post, a local news site. Speaking with the Investigative Post, the dissident, who was not named, said he feared being sent back to Iran after fleeing in the wake of protests that broke out in 2022 after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman arrested for failing to wear hijab. 'These are people who are seeking safety here,' said Awawdeh, of the New York Immigration Coalition. The Trump administration and ICE authorities 'are creating a stereotype, and then weaponizing that stereotype, and then targeting people because of that.'
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New York judge blocks ICE office from opening on Rikers Island
NEW YORK (PIX11) — The Supreme Court of the State of New York has issued a preliminary injunction to block New York City Mayor Eric Adams from opening an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office at Rikers Island. The ruling on Friday came after Adams previously announced that Homeland Security would work with the NYPD and the city's Department of Correction to investigate gang activity at Rikers Island. More Local News 'The State Supreme Court's ruling will effectively prevent thousands of New Yorkers a year from being deported simply because they were accused – not even convicted – of a crime,' said the President and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition Murad Awawdeh. 'New York City should not be in the business of carrying out Donald Trump's mass disappearance agenda, which is in fact illegal under our local laws,' the statement continued. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State ICE previously had officers on Rikers Island until 2014 when the City Council passed sanctuary laws that banned the organization from operating in NYC jails. Advocates had been hoping to block immigration officials from reestablishing an office on Rikers Island saying that the agency had been depriving defendants of due process, some of whom may be in the U.S. legally. According to court documents, judges found that reestablishing an ICE office on Rikers Island would risk 'damage to reputation, loss of goodwill, and brand tarnishment' to New York City due to its reputation as a 'Sanctuary City.' 'Moreover, the imminent threat of the loss of public trust in government institutions serves as a basis for injunctive relief,' the court document reads. The injunction makes it so that all other NYC government officials, officers, personnel and agencies are barred from creating an ICE office on Rikers until the end of the proceeding. Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Noncitizens cannot vote in New York City's local elections, state high court rules
New Yorkers vote early before November's presidential election. New York state's highest court struck down New York City's statute that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections. () New York state's highest court struck down a New York City statute that would have allowed 800,000 noncitizens to vote in mayoral, city council and school board elections. This month, six of the seven judges on the New York State Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that found the city's statute unconstitutional, siding with the New York Republican State Committee, the Republican National Committee and others. The statute, which passed the City Council in 2021 and would have gone into effect the following year, was never implemented after it was immediately challenged in court. '[I]t is facially clear that only citizens may vote in elections within the State of New York,' wrote Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson for the majority. Proponents of allowing legal permanent residents and those in the United States on work authorization to vote solely in local elections argue that it helps integrate immigrants into American society, allowing them to vote on issues dear to them, such as their children's education or taxes. Taking that away is a 'grave injustice,' said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the groups that appealed a lower court's ruling. 'New York City needs more democracy, not less,' Awawdeh said in a statement. 'Expanding voting rights strengthens our communities, and improves our school, housing, and public services.' New York City was one of about 20 cities and towns in California, Maryland and Vermont — along with the District of Columbia — that allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections. Those laws make it clear that the vote would only be extended for local elections, noting that only U.S. citizens may vote in statewide and federal elections. In November, 60% of voters in Santa Ana, California, rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections. Last month, a Vermont Superior Court judge dismissed a conservative group's lawsuit challenging Burlington's statute allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, including those for school board. As Stateline has reported, very few noncitizens have actually participated in these local elections, many either afraid that voting would alert federal immigration officials or unaware that the statutes even existed. Those challenging the New York City statute argued that not only did the statute language violate the state constitution, but that it also would dilute the voice of the city's 5 million registered voters. The issue of noncitizens participating in American elections has become a focus of Republican efforts to add more restrictions to the voting process. The GOP-led Congress has made enacting the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act a major priority. The legislation, known as the SAVE Act, would require voters to show a birth certificate, passport or some proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. But passing the SAVE Act could disenfranchise U.S. citizens, some voting rights advocates say. Critics of the measure point out that more than 21 million American citizens lack access to such documents. They also note that women who have changed their names after marriage are also at risk of being disenfranchised. Finally, they point out that it is already illegal under federal law for noncitizens to vote. Stateline reporter Matt Vasilogambros can be reached at mvasilogambros@
