Around a dozen political leaders from New York state and local governments were arrested on Thursday during a demonstration at a federal building in Manhattan where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) runs detention cells. The demonstration was against the detention cells, which a federal judge recently said had conditions that were cruel.
Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, and ten state senators were among those who were jailed when they were not allowed to enter the 10th-floor facility at 26 Federal Plaza. Protest organizers said the group was there to “ensure compliance” with a court decision that said ICE had to make the detention better.
At the same time, a different group of dozens of people protesting ICE, organized by City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, blocked the entrance to the building’s garage. They sat on the sidewalk with signs and chanted, “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here.”
The persons in charge said that local police and federal agents arrested more than 75 people at both events. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said that there were 71 arrests in total.
Accusations and Political Tensions
This is the most recent spat between federal officials and Democratic politicians who don’t like the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Lander was arrested in June at the same building while taking a man wanted by ICE to jail.
McLaughlin said that Lander came “with agitators and media and then got in the way of law enforcement and made a scene.” She said he “yelled inside the building that he was ‘not leaving’ until detainees were ‘released.'” McLaughlin said that the facility was put on lockdown following the event because there was a “bomb threat.”
The protest organizers went to the facility after an 84-page court order that listed complaints about how dirty and crowded it was. The ruling said that the inmates were crammed into a small room, had to sleep on concrete floors, and didn’t have basic hygiene items like soap and clean clothes. Harold Solis, co-legal director of Make the Road New York, said that the court had made it “abundantly clear” that the “cruel policy” of treating people in such a demeaning way was “also illegal.”
McLaughlin, on the other hand, said that the people being held were immigrants who may be deported because they had been convicted of crimes like drug trafficking, firearms offenses, and other serious accusations. The New York Police Department said that several people were arrested, but neither the police nor DHS said anything about charges being filed.