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Theres nothing spooky about ghostworking, apart from how popular it may be right now. The newly coined term describes a set of behaviors meant to create a façade of productivity at the office, like walking around carrying a notebook as a prop or typing random words just to generate the sound of a clacking keyboard. (Some might call this Costanza-ing, after Jason Alexanders example on a memorable episode of Seinfeld.) Pretending to be busy at the office is not something workers recently invented, of course, but it appears to be reaching critical mass. According to a new survey, more than half of all U.S. employees now admit to regularly ghostworking. That statistic doesnt necessarily mean, however, that the American workforce is mired in permanent purgatory. Conducted by top resume-building service Resume Now, the report is based on a survey of 1,127 U.S. workers this past February. The results show that 58% of employees admit to regularly pretending to work, while another 34% claim they merely do so from time to time. What might be most striking about the reports findings, though, are some of the elaborate methods workers use to perform productivity. Apparently, 15% of U.S. employees have faked a phone call for a supervisors benefit, while 12% have scheduled fake meetings to pad out their calendars, and 22% have used their computer keyboards as pianos to make the music of office ambiance. As for what these employees are actually doing while pretending to crush deliverables, in many cases its hunting for other jobs. The survey shows that 92% of employees have job-searched in some way while on the clock, with 55% admitting they do so regularly. In fact, some of those fake calls employees have made while walking around the office may have been on the way to making real calls to recruiters, since 20% of those surveyed have taken such calls at work. While ghostworking may overlap in some ways with the quiet quitting trend that emerged in 2023, theres a clear distinction between them. It hinges on the definition of the word perform. Someone who is quiet quitting has essentially checked out of their job mentally and is performing the bare minimum of work necessary, says Keith Spencer, a career expert at Resume Now. They are flying under the radar and operating in a way that avoids any attention. Ghostworking, on the other hand, is a performance. It involves actively projecting an appearance of busyness without actually engaging in meaningful work. If quiet quitting was a response to pandemic-era burnout and an abrupt surge in return to office mandates, ghostworking appears to be a response to, well, everything that has happened since. Even before the newly created DOGE began decimating some government and contractor offices around the country in late-January, the waves of layoffs starting in 2023 have continued to gain momentum in the tech world and beyond. Unemployment is still fairly low at 4.2%, not counting those workers who are functionally unemployed, but workers everywhere are worried about a recession. Meanwhile, the drive to incorporate AI into workflow at most companies has created a palpable sense of uncertainty around exactly how to perform jobs in the present, and whether those jobs will even exist in the future. Its no wonder a recent LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Survey found that U.S. workers’ faith in their job security and ability to find new work has plummeted to its lowest level since April 2020, during the onset of the pandemic. Adding to this decline in morale and engagement is a recent decrease in clarity of expectations. According to a Gallup poll from January, just 46% of employees clearly know whats expected of them at work these days, down 10 points from a high of 56% in March 2020. Many workers now live with the tacit understanding that they will have to work harder than ever to avoid getting caught in an impending cull, but without quite being aligned with management on what that work entails. Its in this kind of office environment that ghostworking seems to thrive. The workforce is currently under immense pressure to appear productive, even when its counterintuitive to actual productivity, Spencer says. These behaviors point to a deeper disconnect between how productivity is perceived and how its actually delivered. In many cases, the appearance of working has become just as important as the work itself. The Resume Now survey indicates that 69% of employees believe theyd be more productive if their manager monitored their screen time. However, this invasive approach to task visibility seems destined to backfire. A 2023 report from analytics firm Visier found that employees faced with surveillance tools were more than twice (and in some cases three times) as likely to commit the most egregious performative behaviors, like keeping a laptop screen awake while not working, asking someone to do a task for them, and exaggerating when giving a status update. Even if surveillance did prove effective against ghostworking, it would be an attack on its symptoms, rather than the root causes. The ongoing return to office resurgence has left many employees feeling like theyre working inside of a fishbowl, right as other external factors have made their jobs more challenging and less stable. Some data shows that workers are just as productive while working from home as at the office, while other studies find workers are even more productive at home. Still, for some leaders, a full office humming with deskside chats that could possibly be brainstorming sessions is the only productivity metric that matters. Employees sensing a greater need to broadcast that theyre getting work done than to actually do the work at hand suggests managers may be rewardig performative work. Whatever the solution to the ghostworking trend might be for any individual company, it will likely have to come from those managers shifting their thinking. As Spencer notes, When managers offer more trust, flexibility, and space to do meaningful workinstead of focusing on constant visibilityteams are more likely to stay engaged and actually deliver.
Category:
E-Commerce
Another day, another internship, says Paige Lorbiecki, a junior at the University of Florida, straight to camera. This year, Lorbiecki documented the process of applying to summer marketing internships on TikTok. In this video from May 4, she completed another six applications, but Loribiecki says she applied to more than 100 internships in total. It took her until late May, nearly a month after her classes ended, to finally secure a content creation and social media opportunity at an interior design business. This rigamarole of applying to internships and post-grad fellowships has never been fun, but this year, many are finding the cycle exceptionally tough. College students and recent graduates all over the country are feeling the effects of an oversaturated job market and a lack of entry-level jobs. The student job platform Handshake found that internship postings on their site declined by more than 15% from 2023 to 2025. Between the Trump administrations cuts to university funding, and economic uncertainty over tariffs, many companies are tightening their hiring budgets, limiting the number of summer internships they offer, and raising the amount of experience they require. Fast Company spoke to four different college students, including Loribiecki, about their plans this summer and their insights about the agonizing application season. Their accounts have been edited for space and clarity. Kelly Rappaport, senior at Northwestern University: Ive not gotten a single interview. I fully committed to searching in November or December, and started applying here and there for media and communications industries. Depending on how busy I am each week, I’m putting out anywhere from five to 25 applications each week. I think at this point, we are all aware that the Easy Apply button is as good as throwing your résumé in the garbage. But believe it or not, I’ve not gotten a single interview. Ballpark range, Ive probably applied to 300 to 500 different jobs. Thats actual, sincere job applications. Im very exhausted, jaded, and kind of disappointed. I’m a first-generation college student, and I can’t even get a first round interview or a call back or anything on all these jobs. I have a ton of things on my résumé. I’ve had recruiters tell me I’m over-qualified and then still not get put to the next round interview. And it’s so exhausting when sometimes I see peers that, because they have connections, they are getting jobs. My dad’s like a blue-collar trades worker, and my mom’s worked in public schools. I certainly don’t have connections outside of the Chicago area where I’m from, and so it feels like I’m kind of limited by who I know. For my Sophomore year [summer internship], I don’t think I got an offer until May, and so I was kind of expecting another summer of no internships. I was very stressed, because you look at your peers and you think you need to be in one place or another. Especially as a first-generation college student, my peers are kind of my benchmark. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be, because I don’t have that model of where my parents were at. I really think unpaid internships are rather sinister. There is no other context in this country in which unpaid labor is an acceptable thing. I think there’s definitely inherent privilege [at a university like Northwestern]. There’s the financial security to take on an unpaid internship or an internship in an expensive location; there is the privilege of connection; the privilege of having parents who know where [the benchmark is]; who know how colleges work and how networking is. There’s definitely a major disconnect there. Skyley Mitchell, senior at Stanford University: Slowly but surely, I started losing passion. I study international relations, and truthfully, I didn’t really have a clear, guided career path. I really wanted to focus on social impact, something along those lines, where I can help the community that I find important. So that’s one of the biggest things, and that is terrible not only for the job market, but also for payment, as well. I’m also a low-income student. It puts a lot of pressure on me to provide for [my family]. So that was one of the biggest determinants for what job I want to do, and if I should follow passion or follow money. But the biggest thing about this job market is that it feels like you can do neither. People often say your first job out of college may not matter as much to your future career. But it really felt like it did, so it was really hard. And I hate writing cover letters. They’re one of the worst aspects [of] applications ever, because I basically have to be fun, quirky, and relatable. It’s like a dating app, but for job applications. You want to be fun and interesting. I don’t know how to be fun and interesting to a job that doesn’t care about me yet. I read this article before that was talking about how Gen Z is the most rejected generation ever, basically talking about how we’re getting rejected on dating apps; we’re getting rejected on job apps; we’re getting rejected on school applications. We’re just getting rejected in various aspects in life, which makes us a little jaded. And I think I really felt that for my job applications. Slowly but surely, I started losing passion about what I wanted to do. I just started doing Quick Apply on Indeed in order to get my applications out there. Coming back with rejections, it just really slowly but surely started hurting lessbut not in a good way. Fortunately I have a job now, which I’m very grateful for. But the main reason why I think I was able to get it is because of my school. Stanford is very prestigious [and] has a lot of great opportunities for its students. If you get connected, there’s a lot of opportunities. Paige Lorbiecki, junior at University of Florida: Its like a pit in your gut. At [the University of Florida], I jumped at every opportunity. I feel like my résumé is stacked [and] my portfolio is very diverse, but all these internships are looking for something specific that I just don’t have. I started applying way back in October. Some internships are super early, so I definitely started applying back then, and over winter break, I did a lot, and I still wasn’t hearing anything back. It’s hard because a lot of my finance friends had an internship set a year ago. So I just felt really behind. But marketing specifically is a little bit of a pushed back timeline; it’s a little bit later in the year. I ended up doing close to 80 applicatios. Didn’t really hear anything back. I had three rounds of interviews for different companies. Made it to the final interview of all of those, and ended up not getting it. I would even email them back and say Oh, I would love feedback so I can improve myself, and they would just ghost me. I don’t know how to improve or what I’m missing that these companies are looking for. Starting in February is when the rejections started to roll in. I have applied to a little over 100 now, and I’ve heard back from about 30% of them, so I’m still waiting to hear back from 70%. Half of those, I don’t think I’m ever going to hear back from. It just is what it is. A lot of things are automated nowadays. If my résumé doesn’t match your job description, it just automatically rejects me. I’m a little bit confused why I’m not getting those emails, and now I’m waiting around to know if these opportunities are still open for me, or is it just, like a lost cause? Should I move on? So, its weird. I’m just assuming the worst, that its not going to happen. Why can I not describe my feelings right now? It’s like a pit in your gut. It’s almost like annoyance and a little bit of anger. I feel like I hold myself to a really high standard. So when I don’t achieve those goals, I’m like, Okay, what can I do to fix that? Ive got to figure my shit out. And it’s just really frustrating that it’s come to this point. I’m not going to lie, even just a nice email back would be nice enough for me. I don’t care if you don’t want me, but just let me know. Lauren Levinson, junior at Northwestern University: I’ve been trying to compensate. I definitely started my internship search way later than you’re supposed to. Most people start in the fall, but I was abroad, so I didn’t want to do that. My first application I submitted was in January. And I mean, honestly, I just didn’t submit enough applications. Most of the jobs I applied to were research jobs at Northwestern and I actually don’t think the [federal] funding cuts impacted it. I don’t really know what the issue was, but I didn’t get any of them. One just wasn’t taking more assistance. I got feedback on one of my applications, which was really nice. They said I was really qualified, but they wanted more details. They were You were super qualified. We thought you would have made a really great candidate. But we wanted you to say in your cover letter more about how it would have impacted your career in the future. So [I] didn’t get that one, kind of a bummer, but I’m not surprised, because it included a paid trip to Columbia. I also applied to the summer internship grant program at Northwestern to get funding for unpaid internships. Didn’t get that. That one I definitely think got funding cuts, and does kind of throw a wrench into my plans. But now I’m currently doing an internship at … a nonprofit health center for Spanish-speaking immigrants. I got that internship through Northwestern, but I really love them, and I’ve loved my time there. I’m probably going to stay on with [them] and do a summer there, but probably similar hours to what I’m doing now, part-time, so I can keep working my restaurant job and babysitting and actually making money. Right now, they give me a stipend, so I’m hoping to continue with that system, but I’m also nervous because they don’t normally pay their summer interns. I’ve been trying to compensate. I’m applying to fellowships for next year for 2026-2027. I have to study for the LSAT. Even if I didn’t get an internship, I would still have plenty to do.
Category:
E-Commerce
Norman Foster has always treated technology as a form of expression. As one of the pioneers of high-tech architecture (along with his friend and colleague Richard Rogers), his buildings celebrate exposed structure, advanced engineering, and machine-age style. Think of the flashy steel trusses and tension rods of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank headquarters, the transparent spirals of the Reichstag dome in Berlin, or the diagonal frame of the elliptical Gherkin in London. His latest project, dubbed the Gateway to Venices Waterway, recently unveiled at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, extends that tradition into electric mobility. Developed with Porsche and the Norman Foster Foundation, Gateway is a sinuous, 120-foot-long structure hovering over a wooden walkway perched along the water. Part bridge, part biomorphic sculpture, part charging station, its shimmering, tessellated skindrawn from Porsches Kubus patternshifts in the sun, casting strange shadows. Composed of aluminum tubing and sheet metal (inspired by automotive surfaces) the permeable surface diffuses light, promotes natural cooling, and allows for modular construction and reuse. The lightweight installation, which Foster describes as both an animal with a head, body, and tail and as a platform to explore new forms of clean mobility, temporarily made Venices canals a test site of sorts for Schiller water bikes and the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air, a sleek electric boat powered by the Porsche Macan e-drive. Foster says the system, which is largely recyclable, could also be installed in other cities, although new sites have not yet materialized. [Photo: courtesy Norman Foster Foundation] But whether or not Fosters Gateway provocation takes off, the project has a more important value: It draws attention to the rise of multimodal, electrified urban networks, which are on the verge of transforming transportation. Infrastructure is, slowly (although more quickly in Europe and Asia) becoming less about roads and rails and more but charging nodes, mobility hubs, and adaptable energy systems. The Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air [Photo: Porsche] People need to imagine whats possible, says Kyle Shelton, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for Transportation Studies. He points to what were slowly evolving efforts to familiarize users with new technologies like trains and cars, which were massive leaps when first introduced. People were like, What do you mean this is going to travel at 45 miles per hour? What do you mean I can get to another place in less than a day? Theres an advantage to putting these things out into the world and saying this is a thing. This is a possibility. [Photo: Loop/courtesy Norman Foster Foundation] Travels hybrid future That future, say most experts, will be multipronged. Mobility is moving toward a hybridized future, says Chris Cherry, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Well need stations that can serve everything from scooters to cars to vertical takeoff aircraft. In some places, this is already happening. Amsterdam, which has long provided charging for multiple types of vehicles at major train stations, is rolling out a series of eHUBS, offering charging for e-bikes, e-scooters, and electric cars. Paris has implemented mobility stations across the city that support shared electric cars, bikes, and scooters. The Dutch province of Utrecht has launched a series of mobility hubs near train stations and residential developments that offer car and bike EV charging, shared cars and bikes, and powered infrastructure. And in Sacramento, California, a new mobility hub will help power zero-emissions vehicles (a broader category that includes fuel cell vehicles), electric shuttles, and e-bikes. This kind of unified hub is not the only solution, notes Cherry, who points to the emergence of more informal networks of chargers. You might ask: Do we need one flashy multimodal superhub, or dozens of low-tech, scattered points people can actually use? Along those lines, Oslo has built out dense networks of curbside EV chargers, often repurposing streetlights as chargers and converting gas stations into EV hubs. London has installed thousands of EV chargers, including electric avenues with clusters of residential curbside charging points. Shopping centers across the U.S. are starting to provide charging capabilities, although mainly for electric cars. In many places, Cherry says, charging for lower-voltage vehicles like e-bikes comes down to simply making more power outlets available. Chargers installed on a London street, 2024 [Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images] But the key to transitioning to this new kind of infrastructure, says Shelton, is taking a more holistic view, far beyond charging. We need a systems-based approach that integrates transit, energy, digital platforms, and regulation. Were not just talking about plugging in a scooter. Were talking about building an interlaced system of batteries, software, roads, chargers, hubs, and policies that all work together. A potentially larger issue, Shelton adds, is power. We have a power production and distribution crisis, he says. Were already seeing massive strain from data centers and household electrification, and we dont have the infrastructure to move electricity where its needed most. Indeed, in the U.S., investments in clean energy generation have not kept pace with the demand from EVs, transit systems, and digital infrastructure. And transmission and storage systemsthe physical grids and substations needed to carry and manage that powerare severely underbuilt. Another elephant in the room is equity. Right now, access to charging infrastructure is deeply uneven, notes Omar Asensio, associate professor at the Carter School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Gig workers who drive EVs often dont have home chargers, and rely on a fragile public network. Electric scooters dont even exist in some neighborhoods. And for now the biggest complaint among users, says Asensio, is not the availability of chargers, but their reliability. The screens are broken. The plugs dont work. If you want the public to adopt this, the system has to work every single time. The transition only works if its embedded in a broader, dependable system.
Category:
E-Commerce
The fastest-growing car brand in the U.K. is BYD, the Chinese automaker behind electric cars like the new 16,000 ($21,600) Surf. Last month, the brand outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time. BYD is also the fastest-growing car brand in Brazil, where EV sales jumped up 85% last year. In the capital city of Brasilia, BYD now outsells all other cars, whether theyre gas or electric. In Nepal, where seven out of every 10 cars imported last year was an EV, BYD’s electric models vie with those from Tata, an Indian brand. In Thailand, another Chinese company called Changan is quickly gaining market share with its electric cars. The world is going electric: The International Energy Agency recently projected that one in four cars sold this year will be an EV. But the U.S. is lagging behind, and the Trump administrations assault on EVs will slow down the industry more. That doesn’t bode well for the future of American automakers. Probably the most dire scenario is that the U.S. becomes somewhat isolated in an idiosyncratic market, with lots of big pickups and SUVs that don’t sell in any other market, and that are still predominantly fossil fuel, says John Paul MacDuffie, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. And we’re not exposed to competition from some of the new manufacturers or some of the new technologiesnot only electric but autonomous and connected. China already had a long head start Even before Trumpwho has said that Bidens support for EVs was a Marxist hoaxAmerican car companies were behind their Chinese counterparts on the path to electrification. One factor was China’s continuous support, which started more than 15 years ago. There were changes to the policy and subsidies, but generally it [was clear] that the government thinks this is good technology, says Ilaria Mazzocco, deputy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank. So if youre going to buy an electric vehicle, its not like in two years things are going to change dramatically. Before China started pouring billions into the sector and made EV competitiveness a national priority, BYD was already innovative and lobbying for government support. The company, which had been founded in 1995 as a battery manufacturer, was entrepreneurial and ready to take up the challenge, Mazzocco says. Electric cars also got early support in the U.S.Tesla got a $465 million low-interest loan from the Department of Energy in 2009, benefitted from EV tax credits for consumers, and got a major boost from Californias zero-emission vehicle credits. But Chinas support went farther and faster. Around 60% of new car models sold in China are now electric, five times more than what’s available in the U.S., according to the IEA. From the beginning, Chinese automakers were laser-focused on the cost of EVs. By 2023, around 60% of electric cars in China were cheaper than their gas equivalents without subsidies, the IEA says. In many cases, the technology is more advanced than EV tech from some Western automakers, as Chinese companies race to improve batteries and software. Chinese companies are 30% faster than legacy automakers at developing new EV models, according to one analysis. Ford CEO Jim Farley admitted last year that hed been driving an electric car from Xiaomia Chinese smartphone manufacturer that started making EVsand said he doesnt want to give it up. “There’s no doubt” the future is electric Still, American automakers know that their future is electric. Theres no doubt about it, says Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, the former chief economist at Ford. Companies have already spent billions on the transition. But right now, the legacy automakers face cost challenges. Engineering new batteries and new vehicles obviously has a steep capital cost, versus the depreciated capital costs for continuing to make internal combustion engine cars. And although EV sales grew faster last year than gas car sales, they aren’t growing as quickly as automakers hoped. Ive done the math, Hughes-Cromwick says. Its not great right now for our domestic manufacturers, because theyve got low volume but high fixed costs on the new technology, and low capital costs and high volume on the old tech. As more EVs sell, companies can get to cost and pricing parity. Policies could help make the transition easier, she says, such as keeping tax credits in place for EVs. Instead, the federal government is pushing hard in the other direction. Trump froze billions in spending on EV charging infrastructure, and blocked subsidies for factories making batteries, despite the fact that those factories were creating American jobs. Congress is trying to get rid of the consumer tax credit and add a new annual fee for EV owners (though the fee is meant to replace the gas tax, the total cost would be higher than drivers with gas cars currently spend on it). Congress is also trying to block Californias plans to transition to zero-emissions vehicles. Tariffs have added to the economic pressure. Despite all of this, the long-term strategy for U.S. automakers isnt likely to change. The time horizon for product cycles, facility planning, and supply chain planning is very long, says MacDuffie. Theyre global companies, so theyre not just planning for the U.S. market. I have been predicting that U.S. companies will continues to pursue a long-term strategy which is premised on electrification hitting most markets and most products. I think it would take years of a hostile economic and policy environment for them to back away from that in a big way. It’s too early to count out American automakers, Hughes-Cromwick says, noting that they could pull forward on software, for example. But as Trump pushes for anti-EV policy, companies are slowing some electric investments, and are likely to keep falling behind as Chinese companies race forward. A year ago, the IEA predicted that EVs would hit 50% of car sales in the U.S. by 2030; the agency has now revised that to 20%. With steep tariffs keeping cheap Chinese EVs out of the U.S., theres less incentive for American automakers to innovate as quickly on electric vehicles. The current tax bill also reduces spport for EV battery makers and slashes funding for research and development of new battery tech through the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, Chinese EVs are spreading around the rest of the world. Last year, BYD surpassed Tesla in global vehicle sales. BYD’s stock price has climbed around 59% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since the beginning of 2025, while Tesla’s has declined around 11% on the Nasdaq, despite some recovery in recent weeks. In Brazil, BYD is now rebuilding a former Ford factory, on a street that a local politician wants to rename from Henry Ford Avenue to BYD Avenue. Once consumers have access to these vehicles, theyre really interested, says Mazzocco. For a growing middle class in emerging countries, their first car might be a Chinese electric vehicle.
Category:
E-Commerce
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 11 people after their court hearings at the San Diego Immigration Court last Thursday as part of a new nationwide operation to try to fast track deportations. Beginning on Tuesday, May 20, in courts including those in Santa Ana and Las Vegas, attorneys representing the U.S. governmentwho are also employed by ICErequested that immigration judges close cases of some people who had been in the U.S. for less than two years and who had shown up without attorneys. Normally a closed immigration court case would mean that the government is no longer trying to deport someone. But instead, ICE officers waited outside courtrooms to arrest those people and put them into expedited proceedings that do not require a judge. Going to immigration court is your chance to be heard, said Michelle Celleri, an attorney and legal rights director of Alliance San Diego. It is your right. It is part of due process. Celleri said that arresting people who show up for their hearings would discourage others from coming to immigration courts. ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the immigration court, did not respond to requests for comment from Beyond the Border. ICE has told other news outlets that it is detaining people who are subject to a fast-track deportation authority. That fast-track deportation process is called expedited removal. In expedited removal, an immigration officer, rather than a judge, gives the deportation order. In an executive order issued in January, President Donald Trump called for officers to use the process on anyone who has been in the U.S. for less than two years. With expedited removal, they can deport them tonight, said Ginger Jacobs, a private immigration attorney in San Diego. Theyre short-cutting the due process these folks came here to receive in immigration court. But not everyone detained in San Diego last Thursday had closed cases. ICE arrested several people who had received future hearings dates from the immigration judges they appeared before, according to their attorneys and friends. Ruth, a volunteer with the grassroots group Detention Resistance who asked not to be fully identified because of concerns about potential retaliation, said she had accompanied her friend, a man from Colombia who has been in the U.S. for just under a year, to court Thursday morning. She said that when her friend left the courtroom to go to the bathroom, officers tried to detain him even though his hearing hadnt happened yet. During his hearing, Ruths friend told the judge that he was afraid of being arrested when he went back outside the courtroom. The judge told her friend that he wasnt affiliated with ICE and couldnt control what they did, Ruth said. Her friend turned in his asylum application, and the judge gave him another hearing date. When her friend left his hearing, ICE officers took him into custody. He came in good faith keeping with his asylum process, Ruth said. Now we dont even know whats going to happen to him. Ruth said her friend has been active in the San Diego community and getting involved as a volunteer to help others in need. Tracy Crowley, an immigration attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, took on Ruths friends case as he was being detained. She said she was still trying to figure out the legal reason for taking him into custody. Its wild, Crowley said. The warrants are very bareboned and dont include the legal basis for detaining them. Crowley was among a group of lawyers who jumped in to try to represent people in their court proceedings throughout the day in an effort to avoid additional arrests. Jacobs, the private immigration attorney, said her office took on four cases on May 22, including that of a young woman from Turkey who seemed terrified by the officers presence. In the afternoon, Jacobs helped a mother and her teenage son, quickly getting to know them in the courtroom in the moments before the hearing began. Outside in the hallway, more than 10 officers waited. ICE also called in two private security guards and two Federal Protective Services officers because of the presence of journalists, attorneys, and community members documenting their actions in the hallway. After the family left the courtroom, ICE appeared to follow them to try to detain them. Jacobs followed after the officers, and she said that ICE decided to let the family go. Jacobs said ICE let the family go because the son had accompanied his mother. ICE officers in San Diego mistakenly attempted to arrest two additional people that same day. The officers later acknowledged the error. In one case, an attorney from the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project accompanied his client out of the courtroom. When ICE moved to arrest the client, the attorney objected, asking to see a warrant. Officers shoved themselves between the attorney and his client. Two officers took hold of the man and he ended up on the ground. Beyond the Border witnessed him begin to gasp for air and hyperventilate. The attorney asked to be allowed to help his client, but ICE officers kept him away. A man kneels in the hallway outside immigration court after being detained by ICE on May 22, 2025. [Photo: Kate Morrissey] May I please see a warrant because the warrant you provided is not that person, the attorney said after ICE showed him their documentation. You are making an unlawful arrest. ICE continued to keep him away from his client, saying that the man was having a medical emergency. Hes having a medical emergency thanks to you, the attorney replied. Another attorney in the hallway called for an ambulance, and eventually ICE backed away from the man. The attorney helped his client down the hallway to the elevator, holding the mans arm over his shoulders to support his weight so that he could move away from the officers. I will help my client at this point, the attorney said as they left. You guys have done enough. Several people who had accompanied family members to their hearings were left in the hallway in tears as they watched loved ones being taken away. Celleri worried about family members who werent there and would have no way of knowing what had happened. For those who are unrepresented, to their family they have just disappeared, and they are not going to know where they are for 48 hoursand thats if they know how to find them, Celleri said. Officers told attorneys in the hallway that those arrested on Thursday would be taken to Otay Mesa DetentionCenter in San Diego. Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney and CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center who was among the first to publicly call attention to the ICE operation, called the arrests a bait and switch. By detaining people in courtrooms, we are discouraging people from doing what we have always asked them to do, Toczylowski said. We have always stressed how important it is for people to show up to court, to avail themselves of the system to follow the rules that are set out. She said courts in Santa Ana, Chicago, Phoenix, and Miami also saw arrests this week. Celleri said people with upcoming hearings should know that if they dont come to court, they will likely be ordered deported in their absence. She said that if ICE attempts to arrest someone, that person should make sure the officers have the correct name and that if that person has already paid bond to get out of immigration custody, the person should not be detained again. By Kate Morrissey, Capital & Main This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.
Category:
E-Commerce
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