New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested Tuesday by masked ICE agents at federal immigration court in Lower Manhattan.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.
Lander was released several hours later. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said charges against him have been dropped.
Lander’s office said he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while observing court. He has been attending immigration hearing for the past several weeks to observe and, by his own account, help to escort people out of court so they don’t get arrested by ICE.
“While escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE,” Lander’s campaign spokesperson, Dora Pekec, said in a statement.
Video from the courthouse shot by a member of Lander’s staff showed Lander being placed into handcuffs. A furious Lander could be heard telling agents they had no right to cuff him.
“You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” he could be heard saying during his arrest.
“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,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.
A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York said the SDNY is continuing to investigate the incident.
“The safety and security of official proceedings, government officials, law enforcement officers, and all members of the pubic who participate in them is a core focus of our office,” a spokesperson said.
Under federal law, assaults on law enforcement or other public officials, destruction of property and obstruction of official proceedings are all prohibited.
Lander speaks out after arrest
“I’m happy to report I am just fine. I lost a button,” Lander joked after he was released. “But I’m going to sleep in my bed tonight, safe with my family, I’m grateful to hear that the charges are not being brought. But if they are, I’ve got a lawyer, I don’t have to worry about my due process rights. At that elevator, I was separated from someone named Edgardo, who I had just met a couple of minutes earlier. 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 by a government and a judge that owe him a credible fear hearing before they deport him, and yet have decided instead to strip folks like Edgardo … 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 said he’s accompanied four families out of prior hearings “all of whom were afraid they were going to be detained by ICE agents.”
“This is a sorry day”
Hochul spoke out after Lander was released.
“This is a sorry day for New York and our country,” Hochul said. “The video is shocking. I knew I needed to come down here immediately on check on whereabouts and do what I could to intervene.”
Hochul said the charges against him have been dropped.
“I just want to say: We’re a better country than this. A far better country than what we’re experiencing. This is New York. This is New York, a land of immigrants. We’re proud of them. As I stood in the hallway upstairs on the ninth floor waiting to know the whereabouts of my friend, almost everyone I spoke to who worked there in security and otherwise, they came from other countries. They’re immigrants themselves. Don’t forget that.”
“Today should not be about Brad Lander. It’s about making sure all New Yorkers — regardless of their documentation status — feel safe enough to use public resources, like dialing 911, sending their kids to school, going to the hospital, or attending court appearances, and do not instead hide in the shadows,” a spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams said.
“ICE arresting Brad Lander for asking questions is 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,” ACLU of New York Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “All elected officials and candidates for office should condemn this arrest in the strongest terms and stand up for New Yorkers.”
“This is an abomination. The violence that you witness from a sitting citywide official who simply standing to bear witness [to] what is happening to other humans, that violence you saw him experience, just imagine what they do to people who are less well known,” New York City Councilmember Alex Avilés said.
Lander’s mayoral competitors react
The comptroller is among the 11 Democratic candidates running to replace Mayor Eric Adams in the primary elections. He recently cross-endorsed fellow candidate, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, as they try to team up against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the race.
Mamdani quickly posted on social media to demand Lander’s release.
“NYC Comptroller Brad Lander was just arrested by Trump’s ICE agents because he asked to see a judicial warrant,” Mamdani wrote. “This is fascism and all New Yorkers must speak in one voice. Release him now.”
Cuomo also commented on Lander’s arrest.
“This is the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump’s ICE out of control — one can only imagine the fear families across our country feel when confronted with ICE. Fear of separation, fear of being taken from their schools, fear of being detained without just cause,” Cuomo wrote. “This is not who we are. This must stop, and it must stop now.”
Last week, Lander received the support of a New York Times opinion panel of experts, who said they believe he is the best candidate to lead the city.
“What I saw today was not the rule of law,” Lander’s wife says
Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, held a news conference outside the courthouse, saying she was with him when he was arrested.
“I joined him today, because this is the third time that he has done court watching here, and I have been moved and horrified and found his stories very compelling, and I wanted to be here with him to witness for myself,” Barnette said. “What I saw was shocking and unacceptable and not in accordance — I am an attorney, I haven’t practiced law in a while, but I sure know that what I saw today was not the rule of law. That was not due process, and the way people are being treated is absolutely unacceptable in this city and this country.”
She told reporters Lander and other advocates had repeatedly asked to see the judicial warrant and grounds for deportation and they were linking arms with the person in question.
“We’re surrounding the individual, locking arms. We asked — I was part of the group — and we asked numerous times for the warrant, for their names, for their badge numbers. It was unclear what agency they were from, they’re in full uniform, in many cases, with a mask pulled up over the bridge of their nose,” said Barnette. “So Brad, I assume, was saying, ‘I am an American citizen, I am asking you for the judicial warrant, you do not have grounds to arrest me.'”
Barnette told CBS News New York Lander was arrested as he was walking with linked arms with the individual who had been the subject of the immigration court hearing.
Lander has been going to immigration court on separate occasions for several weeks after a number of undocumented immigrants, including a Bronx high school student named Dylan, have been arrested by masked ICE agents after they show up to routine hearings.
Barnette called that “shocking and unacceptable.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined the news conference and said, “Thank you to Brad Lander.”
“Sometimes, all the power we have is to be present and to witness what is happening. And everyone of any moral character, any moral consciousness will be thanking Brad Lander for being that witness and using what he could where he was with what he had to try to help someone,” Williams said. “What is happening in this country, what is happening in that building is simply unacceptable.”
Lander’s rabbi was also at the courthouse as an observer and spoke during the news conference.
“I share the public advocate’s view that I have never been as proud of him as I am today, and I’ve known him in many situations,” said Rabbi Ellen Lippmann. “I have never been as ashamed to be an American or a New Yorker as I feel today, except for the uprising from all the incredible New Yorkers who represent the good and the true and the right in this city.”
What advocates allege is happening in immigration court
Barnette described seeing multiple cases where the person is told that their case is dismissed and they have 30 days to appeal, but said they were then met by agents waiting for them in the hallway.
“What I saw happen, repeatedly, there and what I understand from other stories has continued to happen is that these folks have pending asylum cases, they are told, ‘Your case is dismissed.’ That sounds like good news. It is not good news. What that means is that you are subject to immediate removal when you leave the courtroom,” she explained. “And the ICE agents are lining the hallway, and that is not explained to people.”
“They are kidnapping our neighbors off of the street. They are bamboozling them, they are tricking them to tell them to come here and something good will happen. And when they hear the court news, they believe something good has happened. And then they’re faced with people in fatigues, with masks on their faces, and they’re taken, having not understood even what just happened legally and what their recourse is,” added Williams. “That is something that we all have to stand up against.”
