New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested at Manhattan’s immigration court Tuesday, becoming the latest elected official to be detained or forcibly removed from immigration-related proceedings amid the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation efforts.
At least four other elected officials have recently faced similar confrontations with law enforcement. Here’s what we know.
Lander had been monitoring immigration court activity over the past few weeks and escorting asylum seekers as they exited their court appointments in Manhattan. Tuesday’s occurrence was no exception, he told CNN.
Multiple videos showed the New York politician standing next to a man and locking arms with him as federal officers approached. The officers asked Lander to step aside to arrest the man, and when he and other bystanders tried to block the arrest, a scuffle broke out between them.
“Anyone can see from the video that I posed no danger to anyone,” Lander told CNN’s Laura Coatesfollowing his releaseTuesday.
“You don’t have a judicial warrant,” Lander told officers who attempted to arrest the man, according to videos.
The videos showed Lander holding onto the man as officers struggled and ultimately moved in to arrest him. At one point, an officer puts his arm up to Lander’s neck, shoving him against a wall and placing him in handcuffs.
As he was placed in handcuffs, Lander could be heard telling federal officers: “You don’t have the authority to arrest US citizens, I’m not obstructing. I’m standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant.”
Severaldirectivesthe Department of Homeland Security issued since January allow ICE officers or agents to conduct immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have “credible information” targeted aliens will be at certain locations, including public and non-public areas in court buildings. Court hallways are considered public spaces where authorities would not need a warrant to make arrests.
Tricia McLaughlin, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, accused Lander on Fox News of “assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer,” while he tried to escort the man.
Lander, following his release, told CNN migrants were being “stripped” of their due process rights, often appearing in court without legal representation and with limited understanding that they would be subject to arrest after their court hearing even when their cases are dismissed.
“I’m gonna sleep in my bed tonight, safe with my family,” Lander said to reporters and a crowd of supporters Tuesday. “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.”
US Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcefully removed from a news conference in Los Angeles last week andcoerced to the groundafter attempting to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.
Padilla, California’sfirst Latino electedto the US Senate, interrupted Noem as she was giving remarks at the FBI headquarters in Los Angeles on the administration’s response to the anti-ICE protests in the city. He was quickly removed from the room, brought to the ground by law enforcement, and placed in handcuffs during the rapidly unfolding incident.
“I was there peacefully,” Padilla said in his first public remarks after the incident. “At one point I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained.”
Noem said the US Secret Service “thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately,” despite videos showing the senator identifying himself as officers grabbed him and pushed him toward a door. “I wish that he would have reached out and identified himself and let us know who he was.”
The pair, Noem said, later met and had a “great conversation” and exchanged phone numbers. “Sat down, talked for 10, 15 minutes about operations in LA, some activities of the Department of Homeland Security, and so I thought it was very productive,” she told reporters.
Padilla later urged people protesting to do so peacefully.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka wasarrestedafter attempting to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, in entering an immigration detention facility in Newark on May 9.
He was charged with trespassing, which was later dropped.
His arrest took place after a heated argument broke out when federal officials blocked his entry, according to Viri Martinez, an activist with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. The incident continued after Baraka returned to the public side of the gates.
Barakawas released the day after the episodeand, after stepping out of an SUV with flashing emergency lights, told waiting supporters: “The reality is this: I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“All of us here, every last one of us, I don’t care what background you come from, what nationality, what language you speak,” Baraka said, “at some point we have to stop these people from causing division between us.”
Baraka, a Democrat who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over its breakdown on immigration. He has aggressively pushed back against the construction and opening of the 1,000-bed detention center, arguing that it should not be allowed to open because of building permit issues.
Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted last week on federal charges alleging she impeded and interfered with immigration officers outside the same New Jersey detention center Baraka got in trouble.
A nearly two-minute clip released by the Department of Homeland Security shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before Baraka’s arrest on the street side of the fence, where other people had been protesting.
She and uniformed officials went through the gate and joined others shouting that they should circle the mayor.
The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point, her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive-green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it. It isn’t clear from police bodycam footage whether that contact was intentional, incidental, or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.
In a complaint filed by acting US Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, McIver was charged with two assault charges stemming from the May 9 visit to Newark’s Delaney Hall.
McIver disputed the allegations as baseless and defended her presence at the facility as part of her authorized role as a member of Congress. Her lawyer, former US Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman, said in a statement that they would challenge the allegations “head-on” in court.
Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan was arrested in April and charged for obstruction and concealing an individual from arrest, after she allegedly helped a defendant in her courtroom to evade immigration officials stationed to arrest him.
A criminal affidavit states Dugan “became visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers,” after learning the plainclothes agents were in the courthouse.
Witnesses said she confronted the federal agents in a public hallway, repeatedly demanded they leave and said they needed a different kind of warrant to make the arrest, according to court documents. She reportedly also involved the courthouse’s chief judge in the matter.
In a ruling issued in late April, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Dugan would be “temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge” while her case moves through the legal system, according to court records.