NEW YORK CITY – The federal agents stationed outside immigration courtrooms at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan wore face coverings, either medical masks or neck gaiters pulled up over their noses. Some obscured their identity further with sunglasses and baseball hats. None displayed their names or badge numbers, though one wore a T-shirt with a picture of a skull and the words “we the people defend liberty.” Assembled in three separate groups, they lingered casually as they waited for their targets, leaning against the wall, chatting, joking around, checking their list of who to disappear.

Each time a courtroom door opened, they snapped to attention, amping themselves up with phrases like “It’s go time.”

Agents snatched a young woman with long curly hair, who jerked away from their grip and held out her hands in the universal sign of “don’t touch me,” but otherwise complied. They separated a man from his wife and two young daughters after the family’s hearing, and led him away as he wept. One man was so distraught when they detained him that he became violently ill, repeatedly vomiting so loudly in the bathroom that he could be heard in the hallway. “Get up, man,” someone begged him. “You gotta get up.” Then the man started to sob.

The scenes that played out for hours on the 12th floor last Tuesday were the same as the week before, and the week before that. They’ve repeated in federal buildings across the country for long enough that most immigrants now understand that they are in danger regardless of whether they follow the law. If they show up to a scheduled hearing, they risk capture by immigration agents no matter what a judge rules. But if they stay away, a judge will likely issue an order for removal in absentia, which means immigration agents could show up to haul them away from their work or their home at any time. Last week, four legal groups filed a class action case against the Trump administration to halt the courthouse arrests. But they continue in the meantime.