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Nearby, a Cuban man who had lived in the United States for years stepped from an elevator and into the courtroom where the government lawyer was waiting for what the man thought was a routine hearing.

The man was doing what the law required, and brought along his wife, a legal resident, and their 7-month-old infant.

Then the lawyer quickly moved to have the man's asylum claim dismissed and a judge agreed, making the man eligible for "expedited removal." As he left the courtroom, the man was swarmed by plainclothes immigration agents who had been surveilling him. A struggle ensued and the wife's shouts could be heard from the hallway as the lawyer moved on to the next case.

The agent replied four minutes later: "Got him."

Similar scenes of courthouse arrests, part of a makeover of the immigration courts under President Donald Trump, are playing out across the United States as his call for mass deportations of migrants is executed with unusually aggressive tactics.