It begins with a courtroom – sober, functional, often overcrowded – and ends with handcuffs in the hallway. Since May 2025, a silent escalation has been unfolding in the United States that few notice unless they’re directly affected: Outside immigration courts, ICE agents lie in wait – often masked, ready to arrest. Asylum seekers who appear properly for their hearings are taken into detention just minutes later – directly, without detours, without protection. What was once considered a space of legal safeguards is turning into a trap under Donald Trump. A trans woman, raped by cartel members in Mexico, is arrested in Oregon – just after the government drops her deportation case. A Venezuelan man, fearing for his life due to death squad threats, is arrested in Seattle moments after his hearing. A Haitian cousin pair – one walks free, the other is led away in tears. The stories repeat. ICE attorneys request case dismissals, letting people fall into a vacuum – only to snatch them inside the courthouse. A legal maneuver, reinforced by Trump’s renewed expansion of so-called “expedited removal,” allowing deportations without a judge.
The result: fear. And a barely concealed goal – deterrence. Those who don’t show up are automatically sentenced. Those who do risk arrest. A vicious circle that upends the system. “It’s an attempt to disappear people,” says Jordan Cunnings of the NGO Innovation Law Lab. Her client, the trans woman O-J-M, ended up in a detention center in Tacoma after her arrest – isolated, without phone access to her attorney. For many, this means resignation instead of defense. Surrender instead of rights. And while protests rage outside – “Free them all,” “No to Deportations” – inside, the game continues. Judges like Kenneth Sogabe, a former Pentagon lawyer, shrug: “I can’t tell you if you’ll be arrested.” They know the game – but they play along. And some, like Judge Andrew Hewitt in Atlanta, resist the system. He refuses to close cases arbitrarily, calling the process “circular” and “inefficient.” But even his rulings can’t prevent ICE agents from waiting at the exits with handcuffs.
The abolition of CBP One – a Biden-era system for digital appointment scheduling – has further worsened the situation. Thousands of affected people now have no status, no papers, no protection. Stephen Miller, Trump’s right-hand man in the White House, has issued the directive: 3,000 arrests per day. The offices comply. The hallways of the courts – once corridors of justice – have become zones of fear. The U.S. is experiencing a cold, administrative deportation machine – without empathy, without mercy, but with system. And with handcuffs that tighten harder than any law ever should.
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