Comptroller Brad Lander and more than a dozen other local elected officials were arrested Thursday afternoon after demanding to oversee a controversial detention center at Immigration Court in downtown Manhattan.
The leaders were zip-tied and detained after demanding access to the 10th-floor holding cells that have become an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in 26 Federal Plaza. They were attempting to conduct oversight of the conditions in the facility after a judge on Wednesday ordered feds to improve the reportedly overcrowded and dirty conditions at the site.
A NYPD bus removes arrested anti-ICE protesters outside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, New York City on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
In addition to Lander, the group included Assembly members Marcela Mitaynes, Emily Gallagher, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Claire Valdez, Tony Simone and Steven Raga and state Sens. Julia Salazar, Jabari Brisport and Gustavo Rivera.
Arrests were also ongoing outside the courthouse, with Department of Homeland Security officers detaining Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Councilwomen Tiffany Caban and Sandy Nurse and Assemblywoman Phara Souffrant Forrest.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, State Senator Julia Salazar and other elected officials speak to the media outside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, New York City on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Lander was released shortly after his arrest, and it was expected all the other elected officials would promptly be released, as well, as soon as their arrests were processed.
Salazar, Lander and Gonzalez-Rojas were given federal summonses on misdemeanor offenses related to blocking entrances, foyers and corridors. All have been given a court date for Nov. 18.
An anti-ICE protester is arrested outside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, New York City on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Lander was previously arrested at the courthouse in June when accompanying immigrants out of their court proceedings.
“This afternoon I faced arrest alongside dozens of New Yorkers in a nonviolent civil disobedience to demand oversight of ICE’s inhumane detention practices,” Williams said in a statement. “Even under this creeping authoritarianism regime, I expect to be released today to go home to my family, but the people we’re fighting for don’t have that privilege, as ICE disappears, and deports them.”
