New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander arrested at immigration court

Lander, also the city’s comptroller, was ‘arrested for assaulting law enforcement’, says DHS

Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller and a mayoral candidate, was arrested on Tuesday by masked federal agents while visiting an immigration court and accompanying a person out of a courtroom.

In a statement to the Guardian, assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin from the Department of Homeland Security said Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”.

Upon his release, Lander said he “certainly did not” assault an officer.

Lander appeared at 26 Federal Plaza to observe immigration hearings involving individuals marked for potential deportation.

He told an Associated Press reporter that he was there to “accompany” some immigrants out of the building. Tuesday’s trip to an immigration court was Lander’s third over the last month.

He was arrested, according to video footage of the incident, as he and his staff walked with an immigrant – who Lander later identified as “Edgardo” – who had their case dismissed pending appeal earlier in the day, per AMNY.

Lander can be seen and heard in videos of the incident asking the immigration officials if they have a judicial warrant. Additional footage of the arrest shows Lander telling the officials: “I’m not obstructing. I’m standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant.

Lander appears to be holding on to Edgardo’s shoulder as the officials move him towards an elevator.

“I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant,” says Lander. The officials, two of whom were wearing masks, then pinned Lander to a wall and put him in handcuffs.

“You don’t have the authority to arrest US citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” Lander can be heard saying.

Immigration lawyers told the New York Times that officials do not need judicial warrants to make arrests in immigration courts because they are public spaces.

Lander’s wife posted an update on her husband’s Twitter/X account less than an hour after the incident.

“Hi, this is Meg Barnette, Brad’s wife,” she wrote, adding: “While escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE. This is still developing, and our team is monitoring the situation closely.”

In a news conference after the arrest, Barnette said she was “extraordinarily proud” of her husband and called the ordeal “shocking and unacceptable”.

Masked agents from several federal agencies were seen lining the halls of 26 Federal Plaza on Tuesday morning, including Ice, Enforcement and Removal Operations, the FBI and the treasury department, according to reporters on the scene from the City.

Video and news of the arrest made the rounds on social media.

Zohran Mamdani, a mayoral candidate who also cross-endorsed Lander, called out the arrest on X: “This is fascism and all New Yorkers must speak in one voice. Release him now.”

Julia Salazar, a New York state senator, called the arrest “more evidence that Ice agents are flagrantly breaking the law”.

“[Lander] knows his rights, and he was speaking up for the rights of others. Ice agents responded by unlawfully arresting him and refusing to answer basic questions,” she said.

Andrew Cuomo, former New York governor and Lander’s mayoral opponent, wrote on X that the arrest 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. This is not who we are. This must stop, and it must stop now.”

Mamdani also appeared at the aforementioned pop-up press conference that Barnette spoke at, telling the crowd: “We have to be clear that, in [Lander’s] ask and in their response, we saw that Icehas no interest in the law, it has no interest in order.

“[Ice] only has an interest in terrorizing people across this country. In this exact moment, New Yorkers and Americans are looking to leaders to meet this moment, to showcase the courage that is necessary,” he said, before adding:

“This is not about an election. This is about ensuring that we protect the city and the country that we love. This is about ensuring that immigrant New Yorkers who come here for regular check-ins do not need to fear being separated from their families in the most brutal and cruel ways imaginable. We know that today’s arrest is but one example of what Ice is doing every single day across this country.”

A demonstration broke out outside 26 Federal Plaza on Tuesday afternoon, with a crowd of supporters shouting “free Brad Lander”.

Protesters held up placards saying “fascist minion” and “immigrants are New York” while surrounded by a tight cordon of police and metal barricades. Public entry to the building was closed despite it being a public building.

New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, called the arrest “bullshit” on social media and to reporters. She later said in a news conference that the charges against Lander had been dropped late on Tuesday afternoon.

“To my knowledge, there are no charges. The charges have been dropped. He walked out of there a free man,” she said.

Upon his release, Lander said at the same news conference that he was “just fine” and only “lost a button”. He went on to add that this was not the case for Edgardo, the man who’s arrest he was challenging.

“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,” Lander said, later adding: “We are normalizing family separation. We are normalizing due process rights violations. We are normalizing the destruction of constitutional democracy, and we’re not going to stand by and let it happen.”

Lander’s arrest comes as federal immigration officials continue to make arrests outside immigration courtrooms across the US. As the Guardian reported on Sunday, between early January, right before the inauguration, and June, there has been an 807% increase in the arrest of immigrants with no criminal record.

The arrest also bore similarities to that of Alex Padilla, a Democratic California senator and vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration polices, who was forcibly removed and handcuffed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Los Angeles last week.

Much like the criticism of Lander’s arrest, Padilla’s arrest was widely lambasted, with Kamala Harris, the former vice-president, calling the incident “a shameful and stunning abuse of power”.

Lander’s arrest was also just one week before the Democratic primary for mayor. His opponents include Cuomo, Mamdani, Adrienne Adams, Scott Stringer, Michael Blake and others. Along with Mamdani, Hochul, Stringer, Blake and Adams showed up to support Lander at the site where he was arrested.

Hochul was later seen inside 26 Federal Plaza seeking answers from Ice about the arrest.

“How long is this going to take, I don’t think he has a long rap sheet,” she reportedly said to agents.

Ed Pilkington contributed reporting