For NYC migrants, just getting inside immigration courthouse is a feat

Each weekday morning before dawn, hundreds of people stand outside the main immigration courthouse in Manhattan in a line that often curves around the building.

They arrive as early as 10 p.m. the night before, with some people wrapping themselves in cardboard to brace themselves against the cold. They covet a spot inside the federal office building, most for mandatory check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gabriel Acosta, from Venezuela, said he arrived at 4 a.m.

“Because I have to,” he said.

“They could deport me,” another man added.

By around 7:15 a.m., police and guards cut off the line.

“You gotta come back before 5 in the morning, OK?” a guard told a group of people huddled outside in the chilly morning air. “And they only take 500 people.”

New York City’s already backlogged immigration system has been straining to accommodate an influx of more than 21,000 migrants since the spring, many of whom are new arrivals bused in from border states.

A recent change in federal border policy slowed the number of asylum-seekers entering the country and consequently being bused north, but it did nothing to fix a system many regard as broken. The logjam can have life-altering consequences, including missed deadlines and even deportation orders issued in absentia.

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