NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Up to a dozen elected officials, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, were arrested Thursday during a protest at a controversial Immigration Customs and Enforcement facility located at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan.
“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.”
Those arrested are expected to receive police summonses before being released. Williams was released from custody shortly after his arrest and showed reporters two tickets he received, one for blocking vehicular traffic and another for failure to disburse.
"What is happening on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza is not only inhumane, it's illegal, they are using it for illegal purposes and in inhumane ways," Williams said. "We are also here because we do know that this has nothing to do with public safety at all. What is happening is fear. What is happening is imposing fear and literally kidnapping our neighbors."
Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani acknowledged the arrests in a statement, and called for the release of his colleagues.
“Overcrowded cells. Unsanitary conditions. Limited access to food and water. These are the inhumane conditions that ICE has created at 26 Federal Plaza, which eleven of my elected colleagues sought to inspect today,” the Democratic nominee for mayor wrote. “Instead, they were arrested. They must be released right now.”
The act of civil disobedience came after months of public outcry about the treatment of people being held at the ICE facility, and one day after a U.S. District Court ordered the agency to improve conditions.
Protesters claim that ICE has illegally detained immigrant New Yorkers at the facility attending scheduled hearings, and have called for the enforcement agency to cease the practice.
“We are at 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE abducts immigrant New Yorkers, to demand access to the 10th floor and block ICE vans from leaving,” Lander said in a statement on social media with photos of the protest. “NYers refuse to stand by while ICE abducts our neighbors. Neither should our leaders.”
In a follow-up post, Lander said that elected officials inside the facility were demanding access to the 10th floor to conduct oversight of conditions.