New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander (D), a candidate for mayor, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers on Tuesday as he guided a defendant out of immigration court docket.
Lander marketing campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec mentioned in a statement that masked brokers took him and ICE detained him as he was escorting a defendant out of the court docket. She mentioned the scenario remains to be creating, and the marketing campaign is monitoring it carefully.
Video of the incident shows Lander main the defendant by means of the hallway and requesting that the brokers present a judicial warrant to detain them.
“I’ll let go while you present me the judicial warrant. The place is it?” Lander mentioned to an agent.
An agent responded that they’d the warrant of their hand, and Lander mentioned he wished to see it earlier than he was pushed towards a wall and put in handcuffs. As he was being detained, he advised them that they don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. residents.
An agent advised him he was obstructing their work, to which Lander responded, “I’m not obstructing. I’m standing proper right here within the hallway.”
The Hill has reached out to ICE for remark.
Lander told The Related Press that he spent the morning observing immigration court docket proceedings and meant to “accompany” some immigrants out of the constructing.
Different candidates working within the mayor’s race shortly condemned Lander’s detention.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who’s the front-runner within the race, mentioned the incident was the “career and academics instance of the intense thuggery of [President] Trump’s ICE uncontrolled,” including that “one can solely think about the concern households throughout our nation really feel when confronted with ICE.”
“Concern of separation, concern of being taken from their colleges, concern of being detained with out simply trigger,” he mentioned in a post on X. “This isn’t who we’re. This should cease, and it should cease now.”
State Meeting member Zohran Mamdani, who has been inserting second in polling, known as for Lander’s launch.
“Standing up for our immigrant neighbors must be celebrated, not condemned,” he mentioned. “All New Yorkers should converse in a single voice and share one message: launch Brad now.”
Lander just isn’t the primary public official to be detained by ICE in the course of the second Trump administration. Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outdoors an ICE detention heart final month, and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) is dealing with federal expenses following a conflict as she and different lawmakers tried to see him.