Masked federal officers wrangled New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander and placed him in handcuffs inside an immigration courthouse in Manhattan on Tuesday.
The city’s elected financial watchdog who is among Democratic candidates for mayor entered the public building to observe immigration hearings when he was accosted by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as well as FBI and Treasury Department agents wearing face coverings.
His arrest comes days after federal agents roughed up California Senator Alex Padilla and handcuffed him on the ground as he was asking questions to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference about protests in his state. Padilla was speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate about his own experience when federal agents descended on Lander.
Lander had linked arms with his staff and an immigrant targeted for arrest moments after a court hearing. As agents moved in to pull Lander away from the hallway, he shouted out “show me your warrant, show me your badge.”
“I will let go if you show me a judicial warrant,” he can be heard saying in footage of his arrest. “I would like to see the warrant, and then I will let go.”
Lander repeatedly asked agents where he was being taken and under what authority, as immigration enforcement officers do not have authority to arrest U.S. citizens.
“I’m not obstructing, I am standing right here in the hallway,” he said. “You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant.”
Speaking outside the courthouse, Lander’s wife Meg Barnette said the immigration judge had “chastised” Lander and others for entering the courtroom and threatened to lock the door.
After Lander left the courtroom with staff, agents swarmed him and an immigrant whose case was dismissed, she said.
Lander has observed court proceedings several times, and Barnette joined after she was “moved and horrified” by his stories from inside immigration courts, where immigrants’ cases are often swiftly dismissed with inadequate instruction and then subject to their immediate removal, she said.
“I know in all likelihood he’s going to be OK, and all the other folks in that building are risking having their families torn apart with inadequate explanation. It’s an abomination,” she said. “What I saw was shocking and unacceptable … What I saw today was not the rule of law. That was not due process.”
New York City’s elected public advocate Jumaane Williams condemned “immoral” immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump and urged officials to release Lander.
“What is happening in this country, what is happening that building, is simply unacceptable,” he said. “It is immoral. We should not just abide by immoral orders from an immoral president.”
This is a developing story
