Efrain Rodriguez showed up at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on July 17 for his court-scheduled immigration check-in on his asylum application. It was supposed to be a routine hearing — but then masked ICE agents pulled him away.

Though he didn't expect to be detained that July afternoon, Rodriguez found himself in familiar territory. He had been detained once before in February 2020, during the start of a global pandemic and the last year of the first Trump administration. That experience has lived with him ever since.

Rodriguez's detainment in July 2025, during the second Trump term, was far shorter — just 39 days. But it brought to mind the terrible conditions he witnessed while detained for more than a year, between two presidencies, describing them as inhumane and psychological

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