
New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by federal agents on Tuesday at a Manhattan immigration court. Lander was escorting a defendant out of the building following his hearing when ICE agents approached to detain the man Lander was assisting. In the video of the incident, Lander repeatedly asks to see a judicial warrant from the masked officers. Lander and the defendant were eventually separated, and Lander was detained inside the court building.
“I am happy to report that I am just fine. I lost a button, but I’m gonna sleep in my bed tonight, safe with my family.” Lander told the crowd. “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,” Lander continued. “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, fair hearing before they deport him.”
Lander was released from detention after a few hours following an intervention from Governor Kathy Hochul, who appeared behind him during his remarks and called his arrest “bullshit” on social media. Later, Hochul reiterated her beliefs. “You want to know what I really think? It’s bullshit. How dare they take an elected official who’s been going down there for weeks to escort people who are afraid to walk into a courthouse in the United States of America,” Hochul said during a press conference. “Brad Lander has stepped up to be a guiding help for them, and this is what happens to him? What the hell is happening to this country?”
According to Hochul, any charges against Lander were dropped. His arrest marks yet another elected official being detained while protesting immigration enforcement. Last week, Senator Alex Padilla of California was shoved and handcuffed by law enforcement when he tried to question Kristi Noem during a news briefing. In May, Newark mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at a protest outside of a New Jersey ICE facility. Federal authorities later pressed charges against Representative LaMonica McIver, who was also at the protest.
In his comments, Lander made sure to note that this was not really about him. “I will be fine,” he said, “but Edgardo is not going to be fine, and the rule of law is not fine, and our constitutional democracy is not fine.”