More than a dozen city and state elected officials who federal agents arrested on Thursday afternoon in and around federal immigration courts in Lower Manhattan.
Photo by Dean Moses
City Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were among over a dozen city and state elected officials who federal agents arrested on Thursday afternoon in and around federal immigration courts in Lower Manhattan.
Lander was arrested by Department of Homeland Security agents, along with a group of 10 other elected officials. They were sitting in a hallway with a banner reading “NYers Against ICE” on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, which houses a DHS lockup for undocumented immigrants the agency has detained after their mandatory court hearings elsewhere in the building.
After demanding access to the holding cells and being forcefully denied entry by DHS agents for about 20 minutes, the officials unfurled the banner and refused to move from the hallway for roughly another 40 minutes before getting cuffed. Specifically, the elected officials were attempting to inspect if the feds were complying with a preliminary injunction ordering them to address overcrowding, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions inside the areas.
During a news conference following the officials being released by DHS, Lander said, “11 elected officials said ‘no more,’ said we are going to see what is happening on the 10th floor.”
“We went to the 10th floor. We patiently and calmly at first asked to be allowed back into the area where they are holding people,” Lander said. “Not only would they not let us in, they duct-taped and wire-tied the door…When they asked us to leave, we said we would not leave until we were allowed to see the conditions that our neighbors are being cruelly and lawlessly detained in, and when they would not allow us in. We made clear we weren’t leaving, and we were then arrested and detained.”
According to Lander’s office, the feds also arrested state Sens. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn), and Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) as well as Assembly Members Marcela Mitaynes (D-Brooklyn), Tony Simone (D-Manhattan), Jessica González-Rojas (D-Queens), Clare Valdez (D-Queens), Robert Carroll (D-Brooklyn), Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn), and Steven Raga (D-Queens).
“We attempted to conduct oversight of the 10th floor to ensure compliance with this preliminary injunction ruling,” González-Rojas said in a statement. “We put our bodies on the line for the lives and freedom of thousands of New Yorkers who have been illegally kidnapped and detained by ICE. Many of us, myself included, were arrested.”
The crew was charged with misdemeanors for blocking an entrance, corridor, and elevator bank.
Another group of elected officials — which included Williams — and activists were arrested by NYPD officers outside the facility for attempting to block its driveway. That group included City Council Members Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens) and Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), and Assembly Member Phara Souffant Forrest (D-Brooklyn).
In a statement released by his office, Williams said that he and his colleagues had acted “in a nonviolent civil disobedience to demand oversight of ICE’s inhumane detention practices.”
“Even under this creeping authoritarianism regime, I expect to be released today to go home to my family, but the people we’re fighting for don’t have that privilege, as ICE disappears and deports them,” Williams said. “Together with the dozens of New Yorkers getting arrested today, I call for all levels of government to do what they can to support our immigrant communities and vulnerable, marginalized populations.”
It is the second time Lander has been arrested at immigration court in Federal Plaza; ICE agents roughly accosted him back in June as he sought to inquire about the case of a detained immigrant.
The incident appeared to mark a major escalation in President Trump’s immigration crackdown in the five boroughs.
It comes after months of Lander and other pols showing up to immigration court to observe migrants being detained after their mandatory hearings. Elected officials have also repeatedly been barred from entering ICE’s makeshift holding cells on the 10th floor of Federal Plaza, as well as other federal lockups, since early June.
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