Scenes from Immigration Court in New York’s Federal Plaza

Last Thursday, Till Eckert was inside an immigration processing center in downtown New York when he came across a woman pleading with an agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement not to take her husband away. Eckert, who is a reporter for the German nonprofit outlet Correctiv on a fellowship with ProPublica, whipped out his phone and filmed the scene as the ICE agent pushed the woman back until she fell, slamming her head against the floor.

By that point, Eckert had been visiting the federal courthouse for nearly two weeks, part of a small coterie of photojournalists and other reporters who have been lining the narrow halls of the twelfth floor daily, documenting the actions of immigration authorities whose tactics have escalated significantly in recent months. He was also on the scene a few days later, when three reporters were shoved in a melee with ICE agents; one of them, a Turkish journalist named L. Vural Elibol, was taken to the hospital. Eckert’s account has been edited for length and clarity.