Masked ICE agents and federal officers in balaclavas detain asylum-seekers after immigration court hearings during US President Donald Trump’s controversial mass deportation effort in New York NY on July 16, 2025. Children and spouses are traumatized as they are caught in the crossfire of family separations, leaving a broken immigrant community.

Federal agents from various organizations like Customs & Border Patrol, ATF, DSS, IRS, etc. rotate in monthly to assist ICE. Most agents say the masks save them from doxing and protect their families from animosity towards them in society. Critics believe masks are intimidating and further traumatize children witnessing detainments of their parents, and that they should be required to show their identity and be held accountable the same as police officers. Legal efforts to unmask them are ongoing.

Migrants line up in the lobby of the Jacob Javits Federal building near a wall bearing a portrait of President Trump and the Preamble to the US Constitution. Agents stand outside courtrooms with papers bearing photos of their ‘target’. After an arduous journey seeking asylum and the American dream, some react with anguish and tears, others walk quietly on their final steps to a new destiny.

There is a vast political divide. Some protest, decrying a lack of due process and a slippery slide into fascism. Others applaud.

And daily, detentions continue…