No fewer than a dozen elected officials — people chosen by the voters to seats in government to represent their interests — came to 26 Federal Plaza on Thursday seeking answers about ICE’s treatment of immigrant detainees being held there.
They were not only denied entry to the 10th-floor holding area, where many detainees are supposedly being held despite ICE’s continued denials, but the lawmakers also staged a protest over the federal agency’s continued obfuscation about the fate of the immigrants in its custody.
For their trouble, ICE agents arrested these elected officials, including City Comptroller Brad Lander — whom agents arrested in an infamously hostile way back in June. Lander and the other lawmakers did not resist arrest on Sept. 18, cooperated with officials, and were released within a couple of hours with summonses in hand.
Through a cynical lens, the episode could be written off as political theater — a number of state and city lawmakers putting on a show for photo ops and headlines. However, this seemed to be a desperate attempt to get answers while ICE continues to leave the city’s elected officials in the dark about what’s going on at Federal Plaza.
It is no secret that ICE has used the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza as a facility to detain immigrants it seized outside courtrooms for the past few months. The leaked video showed these individuals living in tight quarters and squalid conditions in an area not fit for use as a holding cell.
City, state, and elected officials have repeatedly attempted to inspect the 10th floor, only to be repeatedly turned away by ICE. The ACLU of New York sued the federal government to stop the mass holdings, and won a federal court order directing ICE to provide suitable accommodations and to avoid holding large numbers of people in small, squalid quarters.
Whether ICE is complying with the law is not clear because it continues to refuse access to independent inspectors, including elected officials. To borrow from a Russian proverb that President Ronald Reagan often quoted, the agency is asking everyone to trust, but not verify, that it’s obeying the law.
That’s just not good enough.
ICE has lost public trust with its actions of the past few months — the summary detainment of immigrants who are following court orders by attending mandated hearings; the continued masking of those agents making the arrests; and the hostile treatment of reporters, advocates, and elected officials alike, merely seeking answers.
It need not be this way.
ICE is obligated to follow the law and the Constitution, treat immigrants in its custody with respect to civil and constitutional rights, let independent inspectors into its facilities, and be transparent about its operations.
Keeping everyone else in the dark only undermines this agency’s core mission. It is unacceptable, and it must stop.
