Inside the U.S. Immigration System with Nicolò Filippo Rosso

February 12, 2026
12:00–13:15PM EST
ICE agents detain a man in the hallway of 26 Federal Plaza immediately after his hearing. Arrests like this occur even when respondents comply with court proceedings, a practice immigrant rights groups call “courthouse arrests.” While some families walk out together, others vanish into detention, often transferred to Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey or Orange County Jail in New York. In FY 2025, ICE reported holding over 59,000 people in detention on a given day, nearly half with no criminal record. In New York City, more than 30% of ICE arrests between May and June 2025 occurred inside courthouses. © Nicolò Filippo Rosso.
Since 2018, visual journalist Nicolo Filippo Rosso has been documenting migration across the Americas, photographing families across South and Central America as they make the difficult journey north to the United States in search of safety. By 2024, Nicolo reconnected with some in the United States. What they had imagined as the end of a dangerous journey had become a new cycle of fear and instability.
 
In the summer of 2025, Nicolo spent nearly every day inside the immigration courts of downtown Manhattan, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have detained numerous non-U.S. citizens attending court hearings. Many arrived under Temporary Protected Status or requested asylum at the border. They complied with the system, yet were still taken from the hallways, arrested, sent to distant detention centres, and placed on the path to deportation, either to their home countries or to third nations.
 
Hosted by Ron Haviv, the conversation will explore the deep divide in U.S. immigration policy, where demands for border control collide with calls for humanity, and discuss what effect these issues have on the democratic fabric of the country.

Participants

Nicoló Filippo Rosso (b.1985) is an Italian documentary photographer living between South, Central, and North America. After graduating with a degree in Literature at the Università Degli Studi Di Torino in Italy, he moved to Latin America, living mainly in Colombia for the past ten years. Witnessing stories of trauma, inequality, and injustices that have shattered the region for generations, he tells stories of abandoned communities, mass migration crises, conflict, and climate change.
Ron Haviv is both an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and an award-winning photojournalist. He is the co-founder of VII Photo Agency and The VII Foundation.