Witnessing A Disappearance, First Hand

By Andy Bichlbaum, Waging Nonviolence

Last Tuesday, I went for the second time to observe an immigration hearing in downtown Manhattan, as part of a coalition of groups whose work seems inspired by Central American accompaniment strategies. Besides providing a friendly presence to people in horrible circumstances, the point of going is to collect names and emergency contact numbers — so that if someone ends up disappeared, they won’t disappear as completely.

When I entered Courtroom 7 on the 14th floor of 26 Broadway, an Ecuadorian refugee — I’ll call him Andrés — was sitting before Judge Deborah Klahr (who, like all Immigration Court judges, is actually an attorney appointed by the Justice Department). Klahr was in the process of informing Andrés that the government had recommended he be deported.

Klahr then asked Andrés, through an interpreter, if he had reason to fear being sent back. He said that he did, and began to explain the danger he’d face back in Ecuador. Klahr asked whether he could think of a different country to which he might be deported instead. Andrés said he couldn’t.

Klahr then granted Andrés an asylum hearing and proceeded to schedule it for November 2026. She explained to him in meticulous detail what he’d need to do to prepare, and how he should find a lawyer well in advance — noting that if he waited until the last week, the lawyer wouldn’t be able to prepare his case adequately. She also explained that he could bring witnesses to testify about the danger he’d face if he returned to Ecuador.

Klahr’s assistant gave Andrés a freshly-printed sheet with the date, time and place of his new asylum hearing. She then thanked Andrés for coming, wished him well and concluded the session.

No amount of knowledge could have prepared me for what happened next.

At the door, a group of masked and armed ICE agents — who’d been visible the whole time through the doorframe, and also to Klahr — grabbed Andrés by the arm and asked him to come with them “for a minute.” With a dozen press photographers snapping photos, they walked him into a waiting elevator. The doors closed.

Andrés is probably now on the 10th floor of the building, four floors below Klahr’s courtroom. At some point in the coming weeks or months — with no way to find out when — he’ll likely be put on a plane to Ecuador.

Disappearance is one of the first terror tools deployed by fascism, as the person I’d been paired with on Tuesday reminded me. Since January, well over a hundred thousand immigrants, most with no criminal record at all, have been arrested (and, in effect, disappeared) from cities, homes, jobsites — and even from federal courts to which people show up for their hearings, often with no suspicion of danger.