Minutes after he was released by federal immigration authorities, NYC Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander told Documented that what happened today would not deter him from continuing to accompany immigrants to their court hearings.
“I’ll keep doing this, and showing up,” said Lander, who had been arrested by masked federal agents outside an immigration court in the city. The agents arrested him after he questioned if they had a warrant to arrest an immigrant named Edgardo, whom Lander was accompanying out of the courtroom. Lander was detained for around four hours.
“What I’m thinking about right now is where Edgardo is and what we can do to stand up for the rights of New Yorkers and folks seeking asylum here,” Lander told Documented in an interview following his release.
In response to the legal challenges facing New York, Lander told Documented that sanctuary laws needed to be improved to address the situation at hand. He pointed to a lawsuit filed by the federal government’s Justice Department last Thursday against the state of New York over the Protect Our Courts Act, which was designed to block federal immigration officials from arresting individuals at New York courthouses.
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“I want to see us strengthening sanctuary laws here and in New York state and all across the country, and making sure that people’s due process rights and the rule of law are protected,” he said. “Subjecting people to expedited removal and denying them the due process hearings they deserve is disgusting. We’re better than that.”
Video footage of Lander’s arrest shows multiple federal immigration agents, several of them masked, arresting Lander inside the Federal Plaza building that houses an immigration court. “You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens,” Lander tells the agents.
At Foley Square, meters away from the Federal Plaza where Lander was arrested, a large crowd of protesters who had gathered to demand his release, greeted and cheered Lander as he made his way towards them after he was freed. Minutes earlier, he had walked out of the federal building with his wife Meg and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. The governor had reacted to his arrest calling it “bullshit.” Accompanying Lander outside the courthouse, Gov. Hochul told reporters that, to her knowledge, any charges against Lander had been dropped — “he walks out of there a free man.”
The crowd chanted, “free them all,” as Lander made his way to the protest, stopping to applaud and thank his supporters. Lander said that earlier in the day, he and his wife Meg were able to accompany a family of four, which included a 4-year-old and a 5-year old, out of the federal building. He said the family had one week to return to court and prove why they should not be deported.
Several of Lander’s fellow mayoral candidates — Zohran Mamdani, Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, Michael Blake, and Scott Stringer — also showed up in support at the rally following Lander’s release. State assemblymember Mamdani lashed out at federal authorities, calling Lander’s arrest “fascism,” and writing on X that “All New Yorkers must speak in one voice. Release him now.”
Mayor Eric Adams told News 12 on Tuesday evening that he didn’t know much about the situation surrounding Lander’s arrest. Adams said, “I don’t have the full scope of what happened but I will tell anyone, do not do anything that can jeopardize your safety when you’re around law enforcement officers or jeopardize the safety of law enforcement officers.”
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Lander has criticized sharply over the course of the mayoral campaign, was notably absent. Cuomo later issued a statement on Lander’s arrest, calling it “the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump’s ICE.” The former governor also added, “Comptroller Brad Lander was doing absolutely nothing wrong when he was illegally detained and he must be released now.” But his absence outside Federal Plaza was pointed out by several mayoral candidates, including Lander himself.
State senator Myrie said he wasn’t surprised to not see Cuomo. He said, “New Yorkers are seeing the contrast right now. [The Trump administration is] willing to arrest a sitting elected official. We need someone that’s going to be able to stand up to that. And I think New Yorkers are getting a taste of who’s going to be willing to do it right now.”
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Calling it “a very sad day for our democracy,” former city comptroller Stringer pointed to the arrest taking place a week before the primary and said, “ICE is interfering with the ongoing mayoral election of a major city.”
When asked by the press about the several candidates who showed up in support for him, Lander thanked all of them before adding, “Was one of them Andrew Cuomo?” Lander said with a laugh, “Imagine that!” He added, “This is a critical time to have a mayor who will stand up to ICE and to Donald Trump, and insist on due process and the laws of the city. This is a sanctuary city.”
Lander assured those gathered at Foley Square that he was fine, apart from losing a button on his jacket. He said, “I’m going to go home and sleep in my bed tonight and I know I’m safe, I have a lawyer, I will get due process and my rights will be protected, but Edgardo whose arm was ripped from mine when ICE agents came to get him has none of those.”
Lander continued, “[Edgardo’s] going to sleep in an ICE detention facility God knows where tonight. He has no lawyer, as most of the folks that we’re meeting there don’t, and he has been stripped of his due process rights in this country that is supposed to be bounded on equal justice under law.”
Lander also spoke of what he saw inside the room where he was detained for over three hours. “Unfortunately, the sign in the detention room says, ‘Are you detained and separated from your children?’ He added, “Those are the signs that we have on the detention rooms of this building because apparently, family separation has become so normal in this country they have printed signs in English and Spanish for the people who are experiencing it.”
In a statement shared with Documented, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that Lander had been arrested for “assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.” McLaughlin added, “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.”
Rebecca Press, immigration attorney and co-founder of Co-Counsel NYC, said that spaces open to the public — including master calendar hearings, courtrooms, hallways, elevators and common rooms — do not require judicial warrants. Press said that Lander’s arrest is part of the administration’s intimidation tactics. “I would say it is not exclusively directed at the immigrant community, but also directed at anyone who wants to be an ally, anyone who wants to show up.”
She added that people who have been accompanying immigrants to court hearings will have to ask themselves: “If [ICE] is doing this to people in positions of power — what are they going to do to a retiree who decides to accompany somebody to their court hearing?” She compared the detentions at the courts to that of a tsunami that is hitting vulnerable communities like undocumented immigrants first but will reach U.S. citizens too. “The tsunami will eventually reach all parts of society,” she said.
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, a group Lander commended while speaking to protesters following his release, reminded Documented that what happened to Lander today has been happening to several individuals visiting immigration court for their check-ins. Then, he said, they’re “being snatched at the door by ICE after leaving the hearing room.”
Lander’s arrest comes five days after California Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a DHS press conference. He later commented on Lander’s arrest, saying: “I’ve said it before, if it happened to us in full view of the public, imagine what is happening in communities across America when the cameras are off. This should be a wakeup call to the country.” U.S. Representative LaMonica McIver was also recently indicted last Tuesday for “forcibly” impeding and interfering with a federal officer outside the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, NJ. Last month, federal agents also arrested Ras J. Baraka, the mayor of Newark, after he demanded access inside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center.
“My heart is with Brad Lander and his family as they navigate this moment, but this is not really about Brad.” Awawdeh said. “This is about everyday immigrants who make this city what it is in this state and this country what it is. What we’re seeing is egregious violations of their rights, and this is a dangerous moment that we’re seeing the federal government weaponize the agencies to harm people who call this country home.”
Rommel H. Ojeda contributed reporting.
