FBI Monitored Encrypted Signal Chat Used by NYC Immigration Courtwatchers

By Staff, Agencies

Newly disclosed law-enforcement records show that the FBI accessed a private Signal group chat used by immigration-rights activists participating in “courtwatch” efforts across New York City’s federal immigration courts, according to documents obtained by The Guardian.

The materials reveal that the FBI monitored encrypted conversations from a group coordinating volunteers who observe hearings at the three immigration courts in Manhattan, institutions long accused by advocates of systemic due-process violations.

A joint FBI–NYPD memo dated August 28, 2025, cited contents of the Signal chat and designated courtwatch participants as “anarchist violent extremist actors.”

The two-page report was distributed widely to law-enforcement agencies nationwide. The documents were acquired through public-records requests by Property of the People, a nonprofit focused on government transparency.

Immigrant-rights groups have intensified their presence in immigration courts amid a rise in arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Under a revived Trump-era policy, ICE has resumed courthouse detentions, a practice previously limited during the Biden administration over concerns that it undermined access to justice.

Throughout 2025, multiple incidents were reported in which federal agents allowed immigrants’ cases to be dismissed in court, only to detain them in courthouse hallways minutes later.

Both The Guardian and the Associated Press have described the tactic as creating “deportation traps.” In one case, a federal officer was filmed violently pushing a woman to the floor inside a New York courthouse—an episode that drew rare public criticism from the Department of Homeland Security.