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Some immigrants without attorneys are being sent into secret courtrooms on another floor of 26 Federal Plaza where lawyers, observers and reporters are being denied access. Sept 21, 2026. (Gwynne Hogan/The City Reporter)
The Executive Office for Immigration Review, a branch of the Justice Department, started sending immigrants attending routine deportation hearings without lawyers to these private courtrooms on Sept. 14. That has led some immigration and transparency advocates to call them the “black site docket.”
The proceedings have been unfolding on the building’s third floor, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. Traditional immigration courtrooms on two floors inside 26 Federal Plaza are overseen by EOIR. By law and a recent court order, these courtrooms are supposed to be open to the public, except for certain privacy exceptions or capacity issues.
But when The City Reporter tried to enter one of the new immigration courtrooms on the third floor this week, security guards barred the reporter from entering. A DHS police inspector later threatened The City Reporter with arrest for trying to wait in an elevator bank outside the new courtrooms. (The department did not respond to a request for comment.)
“They can’t shuffle bureaucracy and call it compliance,” said Stephen Kelly, an attorney representing Access Project NYC, a group of New Yorkers who sued to ensure public access to immigration courts. He said the group is concerned the new private courtrooms seemed like an attempt to circumvent a federal court order from July requiring immigration courtrooms inside 26 Federal Plaza and 290 Broadway generally be publicly accessible.
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