Democratic New York lawmakers — as well as City Comptroller Brad Lander — were arrested by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers Thursday after demanding access to an alleged detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 26 Federal Plaza.
At least 11 city and state officials have been confirmed to have been taken into custody. All were zip-tied and led away by DHS officers after refusing to leave the 10th floor — where ICE has been accused of running the suspected lockup — without answers.
The elected officials had gathered with immigrant rights organizers to spotlight ICE’s operations in the federal building, where detainees have reported being held in unsafe and degrading conditions. For more than an hour, the group pressed to see the alleged holding area before DHS officers moved in to make arrests.
DHS and ICE deny that 26 Federal Plaza contains a detention facility, insisting the 10th floor is only a short-term processing space.
But court rulings and advocacy groups have documented cases of immigrants being held for days in cramped, unsanitary rooms without beds or timely access to lawyers.
By Thursday evening, the officials had been released and issued federal summonses, with Lander, State Sen. Julia Salazar (D) and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D) showing their summons papers outside the building. They are due back in federal court in November.
Religious leaders and other protesters who joined the demonstration were also arrested, as police cleared both the building’s interior and surrounding plaza.
This is not the first time Lander has clashed with ICE at Federal Plaza. In June, he was briefly detained by federal agents after linking arms with a man facing immigration proceedings and demanding to see a judicial warrant before officers could take him away.
“This afternoon I faced arrest alongside dozens of New Yorkers in a nonviolent civil disobedience to demand oversight of ICE’s inhumane detention practices,” Jumaane Williams, New York City Public Advocate, said following the arrests. “We can never allow this to become normal, we can never allow ourselves to look away from the horror being inflicted on our neighbors, and we have to use every tool available to fight it — including our own bodies, privilege, and freedom.”
The arrests of sitting elected officials — including the city’s public advocate and comptroller — for attempting to inspect ICE facilities has been part of the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation agenda.
This is a developing story. More details to come as information becomes available.
