CNBC: New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was released from custody Tuesday afternoon, about four hours after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the city’s main immigration court.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called Lander’s arrest “total bulls—” in a post on X.
“When elected officials are being detained without cause, we have to ask: what the hell is happening to our country?” Hochul wrote. “This federal overreach cannot go unchecked.”
Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, wrote on X earlier Tuesday: “While escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE.”
Video of the incident posted online showed Lander outside a courtroom being approached by officers, including some wearing masks.
Lander repeatedly asked the officers to show him a judicial warrant before he was handcuffed, according to the video posted by Barnette.
The Department of Homeland Security said Lander was arrested for “assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.”
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that they were “continuing to investigate the actions involving” Lander. As of 5 p.m. ET, Lander had not been charged with a crime.
The incident comes days after police handcuffed Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., after he was forcibly removed from a press conference that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was holding in Los Angeles.
New York Attorney General Letitia James condemned Lander’s detention as “profoundly unacceptable.”
“Arresting Comptroller Lander for the simple act of standing up for immigrants and their civil rights is a shocking abuse of power,” James said in a statement.
She also said it was a “grotesque escalation of tensions” and that the Trump administration’s “rampant targeting of New Yorkers only makes our communities less safe.”
