NEW YORK (RNS) — Last month, on the 12th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, a few families dressed in their Sunday best clutched manila folders and stared stone-faced at a large board. It listed the day’s immigration hearings and judges. A crying boy was led toward the elevators by a woman. Around the corner, three men in collared short-sleeved shirts — federal immigration agents — stood together, occasionally laughing with each other and looking at their phones.
Nearby, the Rev. Eduardo Fabian Arias, conspicuous in his Roman collar, moved through the hallways — introducing himself and handing out small business cards of information to immigrants who lacked lawyers and rushing to get one man’s name when he was arrested in court so that Arias could notify the family.
“I understand that this country needs to have order. That’s fine. But one thing is order, and another thing is abusing human beings,” said Arias, a Lutheran pastor at Saint Peter’s Church in Midtown Manhattan. “We need to have order, but we need to respect the human being.”
Since becoming a pastor at Saint Peter’s in 2020, Arias has made immigrant accompaniment a central part of his ministry. A few days each week, he goes to Federal Plaza, where he sits in on immigration hearings, checks whether people have attorneys, serves as a translator and gathers information when a person is detained.
Since the Trump administration began its mass deportation campaign in January 2025, the risks facing immigrants inside the courthouse have become more severe, Arias said. Last September, Arias witnessed an Ecuadorian asylum-seeker, Monica Moreta-Galarza, whom he accompanied to court, pushed to the ground by an ICE agent, according to news reports. She had been crying when ICE agents detained her husband. When she put a hand on the officer’s chest, then tried to grab on to him, he pushed her down to the floor, The New York Times reported. “Her situation was terrible,” Arias said. “The ICE official abused her physically because she said, ‘Please, don’t detain my husband. Detain me.’ And this guy physically attacked her.”
Tricia McLaughlin, then-assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, called the officer’s conduct “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE” and said the officer’s conduct was being investigated. Days later, CBS reported that the ICE agent returned to duty.
When the people go inside the court, they feel absolute panic. It’s a really, really very hard moment for our immigrant community.
Pastor Eduardo Fabian Arias
Since that incident, which was captured on video and went viral, Saint Peter’s church has worked closely with volunteers and lawyers to respond to courthouse arrests, according to Peter Melck Kuttel, Saint Peter’s detention coordinator. The Manhattan office of U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat who represents lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, has become something of a hub for Saint Peter’s immigrant ministry. Arias said he often brings people there who are trying to help a detained relative or friend. Goldman’s staff works with Arias and legal partners to connect detainees with attorneys, track people in custody and help families figure out what comes next.
“When the people go inside the court, they feel absolute panic. It’s a really, really very hard moment for our immigrant community,” Arias said.
Melck Kuttel estimates arrests averaged four or five a day this summer. An audit by the New York City Mayor’s Office found ICE made 5,567 arrests from January 2025 through March 2026, with about half of the arrests occurring in an immigration court. Overall, ICE arrests rose to a record high this summer, The New York Times reported, as ICE increasingly targets people without any criminal record.
“At this moment, our immigrants are invisible. They are missing,” as are their rights, said Arias.
The Argentine-born pastor first came to Saint Peter’s more than two decades ago as an immigrant himself. The congregation felt like a place of support throughout his immigration process, and Arias was ordained in 2003. He later led Iglesia de Sion, a predominantly Latino Lutheran congregation in Spanish Harlem, which sold its buildings due to financial difficulties and merged with Saint Peter’s Church in 2020.