Latest news with #Edgardo
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Masked Feds Arrest New York City Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander
Masked federal agents handcuffed and detained yet another Democratic lawmaker on Tuesday, this time in New York City. Brad Lander, a mayoral candidate and New York City's current comptroller, was arrested by federal agents, many of them masked, while accompanying another individual out of an immigration hearing at a courtroom in Lower Manhattan. Lander was released hours later. In video of the arrest that has gone viral, Lander has his arms linked with the man and demands proof that the arresting agents are following the law. 'I would like to see the judicial warrant,' Lander repeatedly says as a gaggle of officers — including ICE agents and other members of federal law enforcement —ushered the pair down a hallway of a federal immigration court building. An officer can be heard saying 'take him in' before Lander is pushed up against the wall by a smaller huddle of men, several of whom do not appear to be wearing regular uniforms, and handcuffed. Lander has been escorting migrants to and from immigration hearings in New York for several weeks now. 'You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,' Lander said as he was cuffed. 'I'm not obstructing, I'm standing right here in the hallway.' Hours later, Lander exited the courthouse in the company of New York's Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. In a statement to reporters following his release, Lander said that the charges against him had been dropped. 'You guys all saw it on video, so you know exactly what happened,' Lander said. 'I certainly did not assault an officer.' 'I'm going to sleep in my bed tonight, safe with my family […] I've got a lawyer. I don't have to worry about my due process rights,' Lander told reporters and the crowd of supporters protesting his arrest. 'At that elevator, I was separated from someone named Edgardo […] Edgardo is in ICE detention, and he's not going to sleep in his bed tonight. So far as I know, he has no lawyer. He has been stripped of his due process rights.' 'So I will be fine, but Edgardo is not going to be fine, and the rule of law is not fine, and our constitutional democracy is not fine,' Lander continued. Governor Hochul, who called the arrest 'bullshit,' earlier this afternoon told gathered protesters that earlier in the day she had been 'walking the streets of little Haiti' to talk to migrant New Yorkers who were 'scared' about their future under the Trump administration's immigration policies. The detention comes in the heat of the primary race for mayor, to be held on June 24. Zohran Mamdani, one of Lander's opponents in the mayoral race, wrote a social media post in solidarity, insisting that Lander's arrest 'is fascism' and that 'all New Yorkers must speak in one voice. Release him now.' In a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin announced that Lander had been 'arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.' She added: 'No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.' Trump's administration has brought similar charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.). The member of Congress was indicted earlier this month after the administration accused her of assaulting an ICE officer after an oversight visit at a New Jersey detention center. The tour of the facility descended into chaos after agents arrested Newark, New Jersey, mayor Ras Baraka on charges of trespassing that were later dropped. McIver denies the accusations against her. Lander's arrest comes just days after FBI agents tackled and handcuffed Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) after he attempted to speak during a press conference held by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles. In a speech on the Senate floor, which took place only minutes after Lander's arrest, Padilla did not address the detention of the New Yorker. But he recounted that he has yet to be provided a reason for why he was tackled and handcuffed by federal agents. 'If that is what the administration is willing to do to a United States senator for having the authority [sic] to simply ask a question, imagine what they'll do to any American who dares to speak up. If what you saw happen, can happen when the cameras are on, imagine not only what can happen, but what is happening in so many places where there are no cameras,' Padilla said. More from Rolling Stone 'People Have the Right to Be Outraged': Charlamagne on Diddy, Trump, and Cancel Culture Calling Bullshit: The Truth About the NCAA's Alleged Reforms 'There Is No Intel': Trump's Attacks on Iran Were Based on Vibes, Sources Say Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New York mayoral candidate arrested by Ice: ‘Trump is looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear'
As the New York city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was hauled away by masked Ice agents on Tuesday, all he could think about was whether there was anything more he could do for the man he was trying to help, an immigrant New Yorker named Edgardo. Both men ended up detained, but unlike Edgardo's, Lander's ordeal was over after a few hours. By the time the New York governor, Katy Hochul, marched him out of the courthouse – after proclaiming, of his arrest: 'This is bullshit' – videos and photos of the officers manhandling him had gone viral. The arrest of yet another elected official prompted widespread condemnation of another sign of the US's steady slide into authoritarianism. A host of New York politicians, along with a swelling crowd of angry New Yorkers, awaited Lander outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. (Andrew Cuomo, the former governor and mayoral race frontrunner, was a notable absence, though he did condemn the arrest.) 'I wasn't surprised there were a lot of folks outside angry both about the violations of the rights of immigrants and about Trump's efforts to undermine democracy,' Lander told the Guardian in an interview. 'The Trump administration has been very clear that they are looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear, and undermine democracy, and here they are doing it,' he added. Lander was 'just fine', he told the crowd. He had lost a button in the commotion. But he would sleep in his bed and while no charges against him were filed, he would have had access to a lawyer if they had been. 'But Edgardo will sleep in an Ice detention facility God knows where tonight,' he said. 'He has been stripped of his due process rights in a country that is supposed to be founded on equal justice under law.' A day after the ordeal, Lander said he had no updates on Edgardo, a Spanish-speaking immigrant whom Lander had met just before they were both detained. Lander had been accompanying Edgardo as part of an organized effort to shield immigrants from agents who have been increasingly stalking them for arrest when they appear for their regularly scheduled court hearings. On Tuesday, the group watching proceedings at the court included four rabbis, in addition to Lander, his wife Meg Barnette, and other advocates. He's been showing up, he says, because people in the immigration court system are otherwise unprotected. 'This is one of the rights violations of this system,' he said. 'All these people in it with no lawyers and really no one, no advocates, no one looking out for them.' With early voting well under way and election day less than a week away, the New York City mayoral race is heating up – and Wednesday's arrest has significantly raised the visibility of Lander, a well-respected, longtime New York politician who has nonetheless struggled to gain recognition in what is largely a race between Cuomo and the leftist Zohran Mamdani. (Mamdani rushed to the courthouse on Wednesday as soon as news of Lander's arrest broke.) Lander, who like Mamdani is pitching a progressive vision for a more affordable city, is also running on his years-long experience with city government and his bridge-building skills. Lander is the third Democratic politician recently detained by Department of Homeland Security officials in connection with Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. In this distinction, he joins the California senator Alex Padilla, recently handcuffed and forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, and Newark's mayor, Ras Baraka, who was arrested while protesting outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey last month. Lander sees in the targeting of outspoken Democratic politicians the fulfillment of the Trump administration's promise to 'liberate' cities such as Los Angeles and New York. He said it was 'strange' to find himself a casualty of the administration's crackdown. 'But unfortunately not that strange, as Trump has named New York City on the list of places where they are planning to both ratchet up immigration enforcement and put pressure on elected officials.' In recent weeks Ice agents have been ordered to ramp up arrests, even without warrants. In a video of Lander's arrest, he is heard asking Ice agents multiple times for a warrant – which they do not produce – before telling them, as they place him in handcuffs, that they 'don't have the authority to arrest US citizens asking for a judicial warrant'. The Ice agents who arrested him knew he was an elected official, Lander said. He tried to learn more about them while he was detained. 'I asked a few questions just to understand who they were,' he said. They were also immigrants – one a Pakistani Muslim resident of Brooklyn, the other an Indo-Guyanese man from Queens. 'I asked about their shifts. I hear that Ice agents are working a lot of hours right now,' he said. 'Brad's arrest was shocking – not in the violence, not in the lawlessness, because we've seen this directed at immigrants and citizens profiled as immigrants – but in the decision from Ice to inflict that violence on a sitting elected citywide official,' said Sophie Ellman-Golan, an organizer with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, of which Lander has been a member for decades. Along with JFREJ, he has been working with Immigrant Act, another advocacy group, in shifts to accompany immigrants to court hearings. Lander has gained some momentum after challenging Cuomo during a recent mayoral debate and cross-endorsing fellow progressive Mamdani. But he consistently polled in third place in the race, well behind the other two. Lander called out the current mayor – Eric Adams, who offered little sympathy – of having 'sold out our city' through corruption. He said Cuomo 'made no effort whatsoever to reach out to most New Yorkers' and that he and Mamdani cross-endorsed one another 'because we fundamentally agree that Andrew Cuomo is utterly unfit to be mayor of this city'. He cited Cuomo's hesitation when he was asked in a recent debate whether he had visited a mosque. 'He has nothing to say to Muslim New Yorkers,' said Lander. 'He is an abusive bully who doesn't even love New York City and is just in it for himself.' While some of his supporters criticised him over the Mamdani endorsement – largely due to Mamdani's openly pro-Palestinian views – Lander said that there was 'an enormous outpouring of goodwill for it'. 'It really did prompt a sense of, 'Oh, politics could be not just about individuals looking out for themselves, but trying to build something broader that would build a more aspirational vision for the city, and help people come together around it. 'Obviously, I am putting my case out for why I will be the best mayor of New York City,' he said, citing recent endorsements as a sign his campaign is surging. But, he added, he also hoped to promote a politics 'that's trying to bring people together across divides, and in this case, having one Jewish New Yorker and one Muslim New Yorker cross-endorse in that way offers a hopeful project'. 'Whoever wins, I intend to continue to pursue that hopeful politics.'
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
We asked experts whether ICE agents can arrest people without warrants or not. Here's what we learned
On June 17, 2025, New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at a courthouse. Lander was there observing immigration court hearings and volunteering with a group that accompanied immigrants out of the building, a practice volunteers say provides comfort and witnesses in case immigrants are detained by law enforcement. His arrest happened after he linked arms with an individual named Edgardo whom ICE agents were attempting to detain while the latter attended a hearing. When an agent accused Lander of "obstructing" them, he said, "You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens [...] I'm not obstructing. I'm standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant." Lander was released hours later and according to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, all charges against him were dropped. Federal prosecutors said they were continuing to investigate actions "involving" Lander. It was not clear at first whether Lander was talking about a judicial warrant for himself prior to this arrest, or for Edgardo. Lander's wife confirmed the judicial warrant he asked for was regarding Edgardo, the individual in court, "not for Brad." Lenni Benson, professor of immigration and human rights law at New York School of Law, told Snopes over email that ICE's targeting of immigrants attending their court hearings like Edgardo's is "an attempt by the [Department of Homeland Security] to rapidly detain a high number of people, including those who have complied with all requests and have sought asylum." Many online questioned whether ICE, which focuses on immigration-related crimes, had the authority to arrest people without a warrant, while others wondered whether ICE has the power to arrest U.S. citizens like Lander. Below, we break down the laws governing ICE agents, the warrants they use, their authority when it comes to U.S. citizens and the cases of Lander and Edgardo. We spoke to a number of immigration lawyers and reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We also reached out to Lander's office and will update this story accordingly if we hear back. According to 8 U.S. Code 1357, "Powers of immigration officers and employees," subsection "Powers without warrant," summarized below, immigration agents do not need warrants for the following actions: To interrogate any alien or person believed to be alien about their right to be or remain in the United States. To arrest an alien who, in the agent's presence, is apparently entering the United States in violation of laws or regulations, particularly if the agent has reason to believe the alien can escape before a warrant can be obtained. To board and search for aliens on any vessel in the territorial waters of the United States within "reasonable distance" from any external boundary of the United States, as well as "any railway car, aircraft, conveyance, or vehicle, and within a distance of twenty-five miles from any such external boundary to have access to private lands, but not dwellings." This access is for the purpose of patrolling the border. To arrest people for "felonies which have been committed and which are cognizable under any law of the United States regulating the admission, exclusion, expulsion, or removal of aliens, if he has reason to believe that the person so arrested is guilty of such felony and if there is likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest." To make arrests: "A) for any offense against the United States, if the offense is committed in the officer's or employee's presence, or B) for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States, if the officer or employee has reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such a felony." Per the code, immigration officers can arrest anyone without a warrant if officers are "performing duties relating to the enforcement of the immigration laws at the time of the arrest and if there is a likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest." Aside from the exceptions outlined above under "Powers without warrant," ICE is required to present one of two warrants while making an arrest or conducting a search: either a judicial warrant to enter private property, or an administrative warrant from the agency authorizing an arrest or seizure. Although Lander asked to see a judicial warrant for Edgardo, ICE is not required to present a judicial warrant in a public place like a courtroom. According to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), a judicial warrant can only be issued by a court, must be signed by a state or federal judge, and authorizes "a law enforcement officer to make an arrest, a seizure, or a search of some private area, such as your home." An administrative warrant (also referred to as an "immigration warrant" or "ICE warrant") can be signed by ICE itself. Per the NILC, an administrative warrant is "issued by a federal agency and may be signed by an 'immigration judge' or an 'immigration officer' (such as an ICE agent). Unlike a judicial warrant, an immigration warrant does not authorize a search or entry into your home or other private areas." We spoke to a range of immigration experts who noted that while ICE can obtain judicial warrants against both immigrants and U.S. citizens, they hardly ever do so due to the requirement of convincing a federal judge to issue said warrant. Administrative warrants carry less legal weight, as in practice they allow an agency like ICE to give itself permission to carry out an arrest. Further, ICE cannot use administrative warrants to arrest U.S. citizens. Benson told Snopes that while an administrative warrant should generally not be enforceable against anyone (immigrants and citizens included), it has often been accepted in many cases: In general, no administrative warrant is enforceable against ANYONE. But administrative warrants are frequently accepted in a variety of settings, e.g., employer enforcement where an agency is looking for wage and hours records or compliance with verification of authorization to work. Individuals who are shown a warrant should read it carefully and can tell the officer they will not comply unless the warrant is issued by a member of the federal judiciary. State judges do not have the power to grant federal officers the right to arrest. Sarah Owings, an immigration attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, told Snopes over the phone that ICE has no administrative warrant powers over U.S. citizens. "A judicial warrant could be obtained to arrest a U.S. citizen, but they are not going to do that," she said. One reason is because of how complex the process of obtaining such a warrant can be. In a phone conversation, Nathan Yaffe, an immigration lawyer in New York, told Snopes that while an administrative warrant could simply be signed by an ICE official, the process for getting a judicial warrant can take longer: "You have to convince the judge that there is probable cause [their] search will reveal a crime or unlawful activity." However, Yaffe added, the focus on the type of warrant needed to arrest individuals is a distraction from ICE's general practices. "It's unfortunate that many elected officials and people in the media are fixating on the judicial warrant aspect, because it has never been the case that ICE gets judicial warrants prior to making arrests. It is extraordinarily rare," he said. He continued, "[The demand for a warrant] is founded on an inaccurate premise that ICE is operating 'lawfully' to get a judicial warrant. It wrongly creates exceptionalism around this moment and feeds into the idea there is a procedural justice fix. People should be attacking ICE practices across the board and not just under Trump in that case. There is a good argument [ICE] needs an administrative warrant to make the arrest but even that practice is not a meaningful layer of protection because ICE is basically giving itself permission." ICE generally does not have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens without a warrant except in certain circumstances. Yaffe said all three of the following criteria would have to be met to justify the arrest of a citizen: ICE has to be actively in the middle of performing duties related to immigration enforcement. The person they are arresting has to have been committing an "offense against the United States." That would be a subset of federal crimes. There has to have been "a likelihood of the person escaping before a warrant could be obtained." As stated in 8 U.S. Code 1357, in section 5 of "Powers without warrant," agents can arrest anyone "for any offense against the United States, if the offense is committed in the officer's or employee's presence" or "for any felony" and if the agent believes the citizen will escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest. In a news release, the New York American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called Lander's arrest "a stunning abuse of power and a threat to our democracy": Arresting a public official, the duly-elected comptroller of the City of New York, for asking questions is dangerous intimidation and shows a wanton disregard for the will of the people of New York. It sends an unmistakably authoritarian message — that ICE doesn't care about the rule of law and that anyone exercising their right to challenge ICE and speak up for immigrants will be punished. DHS sent us a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in which she accused Lander of assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer: New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer. Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413% increase in assaults against them — it is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law enforcement safety to get a viral moment. No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences. Looking at footage of Lander, we could not see any evidence of him assaulting law enforcement; rather, he kept repeating, "I will let go [of the immigrant] when you show me the judicial warrant [for Edgardo]." Lander had linked arms with Edgardo, the individual being detained by ICE. Lander was eventually separated and held against a wall, where ICE agents handcuffed him. After an agent accused him of "obstruction," he said, "I'm not obstructing, I'm standing right here in the hallway, I have to see the judicial warrant." Under the U.S. Code, Yaffe told us, the following criteria would have to be true for ICE to justify Lander's arrest, and in his view the conditions were clearly "not met": [If] Lander was assaulting an officer or committing a crime against the United States. It would be a closer call if [ICE] said 'obstruction of justice' was taking place. [...] They would [also] have to say they believed Lander would evade their attempt to arrest him by going into hiding, or escaping before they could get a warrant [for Lander]." Yaffe added that he believed the idea that Lander, who is New York City's comptroller and running for mayor, would attempt to evade the law is "ridiculous." "We are in very unprecedented times," Owings told Snopes. "[By] making decisions to use police powers against people who should not be subject to them." When it comes to Edgardo, the immigrant detained by ICE, Yaffe noted they still would have needed a warrant to arrest him at an immigration court "or [had] an individualized determination that he was a flight risk." In general, he said, "ICE is not making individualized findings about people they are arresting right now. [Or] they are just implementing a blanket policy. I am confident that there wasn't a warrant for [Edgardo's] arrest." Regardless, Edgardo was taken into ICE detention and had no lawyer, according to Lander. Lander said after his own release: "Tonight, I'll go home and sleep in my bed. I have a lawyer, I'll get due process. But Edgardo, whose arm was ripped from mine by ICE agents, has none of those things." Benson said Lander could "have asked for identification of the officer approaching and questioned the officer on why they had a reasonable suspicion of alienage other than the [immigrant] person's presence in the immigration court." While we do not know the specifics of Edgardo's case, he appeared to be cooperating with the government requirement to appear in immigration court. That people like him are being detained is, according to Benson, a sign of rising numbers of immigrant arrests by DHS, including the arrests of people who comply with the legal process of seeking asylum: But under our domestic and international laws, the DHS cannot summarily deport people who have a credible fear of persecution in their country. So what should happen even if the case is terminated, is that the individual will have the right to present his/her/their claim to an asylum officer who if finding it meets the lower standard, will put the person into REGULAR removal proceedings. Exactly where these people were before the case was terminated. Despite the above restrictions, as of this writing ICE has still detained and deported numerous U.S. citizens in 2025, including children born in the United States. "8 U.S. Code § 1324 - Bringing in and Harboring Certain Aliens." LII / Legal Information Institute, Cornell. Accessed 19 June 2025. "8 USC 1357: Powers of Immigration Officers and Employees." U.S. Code. Accessed 19 June 2025. Benson, Leni. Professor of Law, New York Law School. Email, 18 June 2025. Danner, Chas. "U.S. Citizens Keep Getting Caught Up in Trump's Immigration Crackdown." Intelligencer, 3 May 2025, Accessed 19 June 2025. Doherty, Erin. "NYC Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander Released after Arrest by ICE." CNBC, 17 June 2025, Accessed 19 June 2025. Ferré-Sadurní, Luis. "Brad Lander, NYC Mayoral Candidate, Arrested by ICE Agents at Immigration Courthouse." The New York Times, 17 June 2025. Accessed 19 June 2025. Ferré-Sadurní, Luis. "Brad Lander Tried to Escort Immigrants Facing Arrest. He's Not Alone." The New York Times, 19 June 2025. Accessed 19 June 2025. "NYC Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander Arrested at Immigration Court." AP News, 17 June 2025, Accessed 19 June 2025. "NYC Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander Arrested by ICE: Raw Video." YouTube, Fox 5 New York, 17 June 2025, Accessed 19 June 2025. "NYC Comptroller Brad Lander's Wife Speaks out about His Arrest." YouTube, CBS New York, 17 June 2025, Accessed 19 June 2025. "NYCLU on Arrest of City Comptroller." NYCLU, Accessed 19 June 2025. Owings , Sarah. Immigration Attorney. Telephone, 18 June 2025. Warrants and Subpoenas 101. National Immigration Law Center, Sept. 2020, Accessed 19 June 2025. Yaffe, Nathan. Immigration Lawyer. Telephone, 18 June 2025.
Boston Globe
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Brad Lander tried to escort immigrants facing arrest. He's not alone.
Advertisement Before, volunteers might have accompanied immigrants to hearings, but only in recent weeks have they had to consider what happens when they leave 'because ICE wasn't waiting on the other side of the door before,' said Camille J. Mackler, the founder and executive director of Immigrant ARC, a collaborative of immigration legal services providers. 'We really are just there to bear witness in a nonviolent way.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Federal agents wait in a hallway outside New York City's main immigration court in lower Manhattan following the arrest of New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, June 17, 2025. JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NYT Lander, who is running for mayor, maintained that is what he was trying to do Tuesday when federal officers approached an immigrant named Edgardo to arrest him. Video shows Lander appearing to hold on to Edgardo and refusing to let go as officers were trying to arrest the man over Lander's protestations. Advertisement The Department of Homeland Security saw it differently. The agency accused Lander of assaulting and obstructing federal officers as they were performing their duties, all to boost his mayoral campaign. The altercation thrust the work of the volunteer escorts into the national debate about Trump's immigration crackdown, due process rights and the behavior of federal immigration agents. Why are people accompanying migrants at courthouses? The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency initiated a national operation last month to begin arresting certain immigrants as they leave court hearings. The new tactic works like this: An immigrant appears for a hearing in an immigration court to determine whether they can lawfully remain in the country. Suddenly, the government prosecutor asks the judge to dismiss the case. The dismissal terminates certain legal protections that the immigrant had, allowing ICE agents in the hallway to apprehend the person and place them in an expedited deportation process. As ICE began showing up at immigration courts, so did more and more volunteers — activists, faith leaders, lawyers and everyday New Yorkers looking to get involved. They often provide immigrants, many of whom lack lawyers, with legal guidance, though not necessarily representation. They pass out flyers written in Spanish, French, Arabic and other languages informing them of their rights and explaining the government's new arrest strategy. And they take down their name, country of origin and case number so that relatives can be contacted if they are detained and to look up where they are being held. Then, the volunteers try to walk with some migrants — especially those at risk of being arrested because their cases were just dismissed — out of the hearing rooms and past federal officers. 'They are armed, and a lot of them are masked,' said Allison Cutler, an immigration lawyer at the New York Legal Assistance Group, which provides legal help to low-income people, including immigrants. 'People are terrified as soon as they step foot out of the elevator.' Advertisement What can federal agents do? ICE officers are responsible for detaining noncitizens who are violating federal immigration laws. But federal officers are generally permitted to arrest anyone who attempts to obstruct an arrest, which is a federal crime. 'We can't have anyone interfering with our ICE arrest operations,' Todd Lyons, the ICE acting director, told Fox News after Lander's arrest. 'We've always said that if anyone impedes our arrest operations, no matter who you are, you will be taken into custody,' Lyons said. As of Wednesday, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, which had said it was reviewing the incident, had not brought charges against Lander. Asked about volunteers accompanying people in immigration courts, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said, 'Anyone who actively obstructs or assaults law enforcement, including U.S. citizens, will of course face consequences which include arrest.' Have the volunteers prevented arrests? The main goal of accompanying immigrants, volunteers say, is to provide comfort and safety to people who are often afraid of showing up in court, especially during the string of arrests, and to make sure they are not alone if they are detained. It is difficult to gauge whether volunteers are deterring ICE agents from moving in for arrests. Before he was detained, Lander had shown up at the courts twice and escorted out immigrant families who appeared at risk of arrest after their cases were dismissed, walking them by federal agents. 'Does this excessive accompaniment mean that somebody didn't get detained?' Mackler, the leader of Immigrant ARC, said. 'Obviously, we would love for that to be the outcome, but more important, the goal would be to make sure that the person isn't alone.' Advertisement Federal agents have continued to arrest immigrants even when they are surrounded by volunteers, occasionally leading to volatile altercations between the officers and activists. Lander had been appearing at immigration court in conjunction with Immigrant ARC. Mackler said that her organization had trained volunteers not to act in a way that would provoke or escalate a situation with law enforcement officers. 'Our instructions for our volunteers are to not engage or interfere with law enforcement,' she said. 'But I'm also not going to tell a New York City elected official how he shows up to protect New Yorkers.' Who else is showing up at the courts? Representative Jerrold Nadler at an immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, June 18, 2025. JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NYT Immigration courts — which are operated by a branch of the Department of Justice called the Executive Office for Immigration Review — are open to the public. In recent weeks, they have attracted more immigration lawyers looking to help migrants who do not have attorneys and members of the public who observe and document court proceedings to ensure transparency and accountability. Visitors are generally allowed to sit in during hearings after passing through metal detectors in the lobbies of the three Manhattan courthouses that have immigration courts. Judges can close certain proceedings to the public, especially those involving people who are sharing sensitive personal information during asylum hearings. Democratic politicians have descended on the courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza, which also houses ICE offices where detained immigrants have sometimes been held for days in overcrowded conditions. On Wednesday, Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman, both Democrats, sought to conduct an oversight visit to the 10th floor but were denied access by the ICE deputy field office director, William Joyce. Advertisement 'Because we were told not to,' Joyce told the members of Congress during an exchange in the lobby. 'We will continue to go up the chain, and we will get answers,' Goldman later said at a news conference. This article originally appeared in .
The Guardian
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
New York mayoral candidate arrested by Ice: ‘Trump is looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear'
As New York city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was hauled away by masked Ice agents on Tuesday, all he could think about was whether there was anything more he could do for the man he was trying to help, an immigrant New Yorker named Edgardo. Both men ended up detained, but unlike Edgardo's, Lander's ordeal was over after a few hours. By the time New York governor Katy Hochul marched him out of the courthouse – after proclaiming, of his arrest: 'This is bullshit' – videos and photos of the officers manhandling him had gone viral. The arrest of yet another elected official prompted widespread condemnation of another sign of the US's steady slide into authoritarianism. A host of New York politicians, along with a swelling crowd of angry New Yorkers, awaited Lander outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. (Andrew Cuomo, the former governor and mayoral race frontrunner, was a notable absence, though he did condemn the arrest.) 'I wasn't surprised there were a lot of folks outside angry both about the violations of the rights of immigrants and about Trump's efforts to undermine democracy,' Lander told the Guardian in an interview. 'The Trump administration has been very clear that they are looking to stoke conflict, weaponize fear, and undermine democracy, and here they are doing it,' he added. Lander was 'just fine', he told the crowd. He had lost a button in the commotion. But he would sleep in his bed and while no charges against him were filed, he would have had access to a lawyer if they had been. 'But Edgardo will sleep in an Ice detention facility God knows where tonight,' he said. 'He has been stripped of his due process rights in a country that is supposed to be founded on equal justice under law.' A day after the ordeal, Lander said he had no updates on Edgardo, a Spanish-speaking immigrant whom Lander had met just before they were both detained. Lander had been accompanying Edgardo as part of an organized effort to shield immigrants from agents who have been increasingly stalking them for arrest when they appear for their regularly scheduled court hearings. On Tuesday, the group watching proceedings at the court included four rabbis, in addition to Lander, his wife Meg Barnette, and other advocates. He's been showing up, he says, because people in the immigration court system are otherwise unprotected. 'This is one of the rights violations of this system,' he said. 'All these people in it with no lawyers and really no one, no advocates, no one looking out for them.' With early voting well under way and election day less than a week away, the New York City mayoral race is heating up – and Wednesday's arrest has significantly raised the visibility of Lander, a well-respected, long-time New York politician who has nonetheless struggled to gain recognition in what is largely a race between Cuomo and leftist Zohran Mamdani. (Mamdani rushed to the courthouse on Wednesday as soon as news of Lander's arrest broke.) Lander, who like Mamdani is pitching a progressive vision for a more affordable city, is also running on his years-long experience with city government and his bridge-building skills. Lander is the third Democratic politician recently detained by Department of Homeland Security officials in connection with Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. In this distinction, he joins the California senator Alex Padilla, recently handcuffed and forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, and Newark mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested while protesting outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey last month. Lander sees in the targeting of outspoken Democratic politicians the fulfillment of the Trump administration's promise to 'liberate' cities such as Los Angeles and New York. He said it was 'strange' to find himself a casualty of the administration's crackdown. 'But unfortunately not that strange, as Trump has named New York City on the list of places where they are planning to both ratchet up immigration enforcement and put pressure on elected officials.' In recent weeks Ice agents have been ordered to ramp up arrests, even without warrants. In a video of Lander's arrest, he is heard asking Ice agents multiple times for a warrant – which they do not produce – before telling them, as they place him in handcuffs, that they 'don't have the authority to arrest US citizens asking for a judicial warrant'. The Ice agents who arrested him knew he was an elected official, Lander said. He tried to learn more about them while he was detained. 'I asked a few questions just to understand who they were,' he said. They were also immigrants – one a Pakistani Muslim resident of Brooklyn, the other an Indo-Guyanese man from Queens. 'I asked about their shifts. I hear that Ice agents are working a lot of hours right now,' he said. 'Brad's arrest was shocking – not in the violence, not in the lawlessness, because we've seen this directed at immigrants and citizens profiled as immigrants – but in the decision from Ice to inflict that violence on a sitting elected citywide official,' said Sophie Ellman-Golan, an organizer with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, of which Lander has been a member for decades. Along with JFREJ, he has been working with Immigrant Act, another advocacy group, in shifts to accompany immigrants to court hearings. Lander has gained some momentum after challenging Cuomo during a recent mayoral debate and cross-endorsing fellow progressive Mamdani. But he consistently polled in third place in the race, well behind the other two. Lander called out the current mayor – Eric Adams, who offered little sympathy – of having 'sold out our city' through corruption. He said Cuomo 'made no effort whatsoever to reach out to most New Yorkers' and that he and Mamdani cross-endorsed one another 'because we fundamentally agree that Andrew Cuomo is utterly unfit to be mayor of this city'. He cited Cuomo's hesitation when he was asked in a recent debate whether he had visited a mosque. 'He has nothing to say to Muslim New Yorkers,' said Lander. 'He is an abusive bully who doesn't even love New York City and is just in it for himself.' While some of his supporters criticised him over the Mamdani endorsement – largely due to Mamdani's openly pro-Palestinian views – Lander said that here was 'an enormous outpouring of goodwill for it'. 'It really did prompt a sense of, 'Oh, politics could be not just about individuals looking out for themselves, but trying to build something broader that would build a more aspirational vision for the city, and help people come together around it.' 'Obviously, I am putting my case out for why I will be the best mayor of New York City,' he said, citing recent endorsements as a sign his campaign is surging. But, he added, he also hoped to promote a politics 'that's trying to bring people together across divides, and in this case, having one Jewish New Yorker and one Muslim New Yorker cross-endorse in that way offers a hopeful project'. 'Whoever wins, I intend to continue to pursue that hopeful politics.'
