ICE Goons Arrest NYC Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander, Nation Now Safe From Roving Comptrollers

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s also running for mayor, was grabbed by masked ICE agents and arrested yesterday when Lander refused to leave the side of an immigrant who Lander was attempting to escort from an immigration hearing in a federal building. The immigrant’s case had been dismissed and ICE was there to grab him and deport him, as is its new scummy practice toward people complying with legal immigration processes these days. When Lander asked the masked men to show a judicial warrant for the man’s arrest, they refused, hauled the immigrant away, and and then arrested Lander.

Lander asked the agents repeatedly to show the warrant for the man’s arrest, but why would they listen to him, he’s not the boss of them and they have guns. At one point, his hand on the shoulder of the man he’s escorting, Lander said to the ICE goons, “I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant.” Instead, they pried his hand away and arrested Lander too. Lander told them, “I’m not obstructing, I am standing right here in the hallway. […] You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” for all the good that did. They seemed quite certain that they did, however, and hustled Lander off into an elevator, along with one member of his NYPD security detail, although it’s not clear whether the NYPD cop was also under arrest or just allowed to stay with Lander.

Also, as The City reports, the ICE agents who grabbed Lander knew damn well who he was, since a reporter from that outlet “overheard one agent say to another minutes before Lander’s arrest, ‘Do you want to arrest the Comptroller?’”

It’s been quite a month of ICE goons grabbing and tossing around Democrats in federal buildings already, hasn’t it?

Its tongue firmly pressed to a metaphorical boot, The New York Times helpfully pointed out that “Agents do not need judicial warrants to make arrests in immigration courts because they are public spaces, immigration lawyers said.” So there you go, Mr. Smartypants guy trying to make an ethical case to armed masked men operating under color of law.

The White House’s go-to liar on immigration matters, assistant DHS Secretary for Propaganda Tricia McLaughlin, issued a statement claiming that Lander was arrested for “assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer,” which was reminiscent of similar bullshit claims that Rep. LaMonica McIver had “assaulted” ICE agents who manhandled her outside an ICE detention facility in May.

McLaughlin, clearly relishing the chance to remind everyone she works for a convicted felon who believes himself legally untouchable, added “No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.”

We reviewed the video above, and we aren’t sure whether Lander is supposed to have assaulted the ICE guys when he was having his hand pulled off the immigrant fellow’s shoulder, when he was being grabbed by multiple masked agents, or when he was being jammed up against the wall.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul went to the federal building to try to get some answers, after posting “This is bullshit” to social media. The City reports that Hochul

spent around an hour on the 9th floor of the building, talking to ICE agents there before Lander was eventually walked out by agents.

“How long is this going to take?” Hochul asked, chatting up the agents as she waited. “I don’t think he has a long rap sheet.”

Ultimately, Lander was released without being charged after several hours, and spoke to the press outside, accompanied by Hochul. The US attorney’s office said it is still “investigating” the incident and may yet file charges, especially if Stephen Miller or his part-time employee, Donald Trump, orders it to.

Here’s Lander, speaking to the press, emphasizing that he’s fine and would be sleeping in his own bed last night, but the same can’t be said of Edgardo, the man who he was escorting, and that the rule of law and American democracy are not fine.

“I know I will get due process and that my rights will be protected,” Lander said. “But Edgardo will sleep in an ICE detention facility God knows where tonight…he has been stripped of his due process rights in a country that is supposed to be founded on equal justice under law.”

Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, said in a news conference Tuesday that she was “extraordinarily proud” of him, adding,

“What I saw was shocking and unacceptable. What I saw today was not the rule of law.”

“This is a place where the rule of law is supposed to work. I was able to call our attorney and retain him immediately for Brad.”

This was the third time in the last month that Lander has gone to the immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza to observe the actions of ICE as they grab people whose asylum cases have been arbitrarily dismissed, so they can try to fast-track them for deportation, a process that is, surprisingly, legal, albeit sketchy as fuck. Lander vowed to continue participating in the escort program sponsored by an immigrants’ rights group, Immigrant ARC.

Following the arrest, fellow mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wrote on Twitter (archive link), “This is fascism and all New Yorkers must speak in one voice. Release him now.” Mamdani and three other mayoral candidates — former Comptroller Scott Stringer, former state Assemblyman Michael Blake, and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams — all came down to the federal building to join the crowd of supporters calling for Lander’s release.

Mamdani and Lander have cross-endorsed each other in next week’s ranked-choice primary, for which early voting is already underway, to increase the chances that one of them will get the Democratic nomination and shut out Andrew Cuomo, ick. Mamdani has also cross-endorsed with Blake, and we think it would be cool if most of the other Dems except Cuomo did the same just to piss in Cuomo’s cornflakes.

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[Guardian / NYT / The City]

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