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sanctuary cities
Over 70 Arrested, Including City Officials, During Protests Against ICE Detention in NYC
"We are talking about people fleeing violence and terror, and we are subjecting them to violence and terror," said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who was arrested for the second time this summer for attempting to block ICE.
Sep 19, 2025
Department of Homeland Security police arrested 11 New York state lawmakers on Thursday as they demanded access to a secretive immigrant detention facility in Lower Manhattan.
As The City reports:
The arrests at 26 Federal Plaza happened after an hour-long standoff, with the lawmakers refusing to leave the hallway outside the lockup, banging on the locked doors, and eventually sitting down to chant and sing before they were hauled off in zip ties.
All 11 have been released. Those arrested were city Comptroller Brad Lander along with state Senators Jabari Brisport, Gustavo Rivera and Julia Salazar and Assemblymembers Robert Carroll, Emily Gallagher, Jessica Gonzalez Rojas, Marcela Mitaynes, Steve Raga, Tony Simone and Claire Valdez.
The lawmakers were among at least 71 people arrested at the facility, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Others included immigrants’ rights activists and religious leaders who held a sit-in to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vans from entering and exiting the facility with detainees.
The agency has previously denied that an immigrant detention site exists at 26 Federal Plaza, a federal building that contains DHS and FBI offices as well as one of New York City's main immigration courts.
But in July, videos obtained by the New York Immigration Coalition confirmed accounts that it was confining people in wretched conditions.
(Video: The Guardian, via the New York Immigration Coalition)
Those clips, first reported by The City, showed around two dozen men in a fluorescent-lit room without beds. Several of them were shown lying on the ground under aluminum emergency blankets. The camera showed two toilets in the same room, separated from the living quarters by nothing but a short wall.
One of the men described the conditions: "They haven’t given us food, they haven’t given us medicine. We’re cold. There are people who’ve been here for 10, 15 days inside. We’re just waiting.”
New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams, who would become the first person arrested on Thursday, explained why he was helping to block the driveway to the facility.
"I think everybody can now see that everything going on behind us is not only illegal, it's inhumane, and has nothing to do with public safety," he said, with chants echoing behind him. "Those of us who have a little bit more privilege have to step up and do our best to protect those who have even less."
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander—a top ally of the Democratic nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani—was arrested for the second time at 26 Federal Plaza this summer. In June, he was grabbed by masked agents there while he escorted a defendant out of immigration court.
"I've been here more than a dozen times, and every single time, I have seen a lawless abduction," Lander said while sitting in a circle with protesters inside the building. "We are talking about people fleeing violence and terror, and we are subjecting them to violence and terror."
In a statement responding to the protests, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the DHS, accused the immigrants inside the facility of being gang members, possessing fentanyl, or having a gun, though she did not identify any of the detainees.
According to the most recent immigration data, about 71% of those held in ICE detention have no criminal convictions, while most of those who do have committed only minor offenses. Data from June showed that just 7% of those taken into custody have violent criminal convictions.
McLaughlin blamed Lander for starting the "chaos" at the facility, which she said led to the arrest of "71 agitators and sanctuary politicians.”
Long known as a "sanctuary city," New York City has laws on the books forbidding agencies, including the New York Police Department (NYPD), from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement unless the person ICE seeks to detain has been convicted of a serious crime and ICE officials present a judicial warrant.
However, facing a lawsuit and aggressive pressure campaign from the Trump administration, Mayor Eric Adams has sought to loosen that policy and increase collaboration with federal authorities.
Thursday's protests come as ICE ramps up arrests and detentions to record numbers across the state of New York, which the protesters argued the state legislature has done little to combat.
Among the protesters' demands was for the legislature to pass the New York For All Act, which would limit state agencies' ability to collaborate with ICE and other federal agencies. They also called on the city council to pass the NYC Trust Act, which would allow individuals to sue the NYPD and the city's Department of Corrections for collaborating with ICE in violation of the city's sanctuary laws.
Tiffany Cabán, a city council member who was arrested outside the plaza, addressed the press while being led away by a pair of police officers.
"We need to get ICE out of New York," Cabán said. "We need to make sure that every detainee in Federal Plaza is released. There is a humanitarian crisis. They're being tortured. We need to, at the state and city level, pass laws to make sure that we remain a sanctuary city."
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The Federal Policing of DC Has Made Us Less Safe
DC is a dangerous place today, and it is because of DC’s occupation by federal law enforcement and troops.
Aug 26, 2025
In my 50-some years of community and political ministry, and organizing that resisted Boston's test with "stop and frisk" after the hoax of Charles Stuart murdering his wife and blaming it on a Black man, I thought I had seen it all. Then when Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old former Department of Government Efficiency worker and software engineer known online as "Big Balls," was assaulted in Dupont Circle in reportedly a carjacking incident it was deja vu of Boston and the neighborhood where I lived, Roxbury, being turned upside down again.
I thought I had already seen the worst of white reaction to Blackness, but again I was wrong. US President Donald Trump and the MAGA-white supremacist chorus used the Coristine incident as justification for a city gone wild that needed to be brought under control. I listened and heard all of the political hyperbole on the airwaves and in social media that I had heard before. It was another version, I thought, of Raymond Flynn, Mayor of Boston during the Charles Stuart hoax, declaring that it was a terrible night in Boston and turning loose the police on the Black community and advancing tactics like "stop and frisk." I listened and heard once again words and statements that would justify the Trump-MAGA-authoritarian regime's initiatives to demonstrate to its white base that at all cost white life will be protected, and the Black culprits brought into line. It seems that everyone has conveniently forgotten the feigned genesis that was used to justify this attack upon our city, on our democracy, home rule in DC, and civilian government.
I watched and listened at the legal battle that unfolded between the Trump administration and the DC attorney general about who would be in charge of this new municipal-federal police force. The DC attorney general took the matter to court, and it was determined that the DC chief of police would remain in charge—for now, but in compromise the DC government bowed to the anti-sanctuary sentiments dictated by the Trump regime. Trump talked about how dangerous DC was, and said it is plagued with crime, that visitors are in danger for their lives, that the parks need to be cleaned up from homeless encampments, Confederate statues needed to be replaced, and the cracked marble on monuments need to be repaired.
Trump stressed the dangers and disrepair of Washington, DC. Challenged the Mayor, Muriel Bowser, in her management of the city, and recently has threatened to erase home rule all together and completely "federalize" the city. Mayor Bowser first attempted to appease the Trump-MAGA-White Supremacist regime as it came to power. She dismantled "Black Lives Matter Plaza" that was dedicated on 16th Street NW leading up to the White House, created after the murder of George Floyd and Trump's upside-down Bible photo op in front of the Episcopal church sitting on the edge of Lafayette Square. But there would be no appeasement, and the mayor proved how out of step she was in this historical moment by citing crime statistics and the facts about crime rates being down. The Trump-MAGA-white supremacist regime could care less about crime statistics, but offered what happened to "Big Balls" as an example of a threat to all white people. Trump cited how mismanaged the city was and how dangerous it is to live here.
If you walk or drive around the streets of DC, you will feel it and see it—this is martial law without the declaration.
I am someone who can admit to the dangers of DC today, but not in the terms presented by Trump and his band of parrots. DC is a dangerous place today, and it is because of DC's occupation by federal law enforcement and troops. What I have seen and experienced over the last week has been marked and unmarked cars with masked and unmasked personnel. I have seen their awkwardness and discomfort interacting with the people of DC. What I have seen and experienced during this brief time has been many different kinds of law enforcement agencies stopping people for all kinds of concocted offenses.
While driving with a friend a few nights ago, we drove past at least 10 police cars from various agencies including Secret Service with a Black man held and handcuffed standing behind a car. He was surrounded by different kinds of cops. I turned the car around, parked it, got out, and went over to question the police on what they were doing. A DC cop who seemed to decide that he was going to be my liaison explained that the man was stopped for driving with tinted windows. The handcuffed man explained and appealed to me that his grandmother who was seated in the passenger side of the car needed to get home safely. He continued, saying that he had taken her to dinner and she needed to get home if he was being arrested. The incident drew more than 10 cops. The man eventually was arrested for driving with tinted windows. The DC lieutenant who interfaced with me assured me that he would get the man's grandmother home.
Another incident that I witnessed took place a few days later on a Saturday. Many of us have been running a picket line supporting the boycott of Target in conjunction with the national campaign. Where the Target store is located is an area with a concentration of immigrants. It is the Columbia Heights-Adams Morgan neighborhood in the city. We have been on the picket line for months, and on 14th Street NW, the street has always been busy with shoppers of diverse populations.
Normally the street is lined with grassroots vendors selling all kinds of wares and goods. The immigrant community has shopped there, immigrant vendors sell there, and the street has always been crowded with tents and tables laden with whatever people were selling. Over the course of our time picketing Target, and in the last few weeks, we have watched the vendors disappear. We have seen the street get quieter, and the shoppers diminish.
But on this particular Saturday, as the Target picket line was disbanding, the DC police stopped a Latino motorcyclist supposedly for having the tags on his motorcycle turned upward and illegally parking. It so happened that I knew one of the DC cops and went over to talk to him. He assured me that he was not going to check the immigrant status of the individual. I thanked him for that but admonished the DC police for harassing the man in the first place. The cop I knew responded to me that he was under strict orders to stop people for what they would not ordinarily stop people for. I told him that this was a sad state of affairs, and he agreed.
Just then Homeland Security showed up with other agencies wearing brown uniforms as if they were patrolling in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was then, when those federal law enforcement entities showed up, that the crowd that had been watching the encounter became more vocal, agitated, and were unified in their demands. With cellphone cameras in hand, people began to yell, "Get the fuck out of here," "Nobody wants you here," "Leave hardworking people alone," and "Get the fuck out of DC!"
The crowd of onlookers quickly swelled from 10-20 to more than 100 people. They were white, Black, Latino, male, female, young, and old. It was everybody. And what I realized, as I caught the image of a federal agent in a brown stormtrooper uniform staring threateningly at the crowd with his hand on his hip near his gun, his facial expression declaring, "I dare you," was the real threat to residents of DC. As I looked at this anonymous agent with his blue eyes and hostile stare and presence, I realized that he was hoping for and wanting something to "hop off" so that the military presence might be thoroughly justified.
I also saw something that is rare, and that is how the jeering crowd yelling at the occupiers, demanding that they get out of DC and hurling "F" bombs, was unified in their anger, defiance, and solidarity with one another and those being victimized. I saw in the mixture of law enforcement responding to minor and nonexistent incidents in DC and the unity of the anger from the community toward these occupiers that there is going to be some kind of response in the form of an uprising. This is not something that I am advocating, but I have seen that the defiance and outrage over the presence of federal law enforcement agencies roaming the streets of DC will precipitate a situation that will quickly get out of hand.
We are witnessing cop stops that would usually entail one or two police cars currently demanding five and 10 cars for nonexistent and questionable legal violations. I have seen agents with no identification on them (some of them masked) and National Guard units from states where there is a lack of people of color in the population making those National Guard details whiter. I have seen the overconcentration of law enforcement harassing people for no legitimate reasons. I have also seen a unity of anger not seen before from the people of Washington, DC, and that along with the discomfort of many of these law enforcement occupiers among a racially and culturally diverse population is like striking matches to gasoline.
We all know that an uprising is precisely what the Trump-MAGA-white supremacist regime wants to see. They want an uprising so that they can call up more troops and take over more cities. We need to be aware of the racial fuse being lit that traces back to accusations of Black men raping white women or beating white men. It reaches back to the Charles Stuart hoax that I witnessed and lived through in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
The indignity that "Big Balls" experienced has been referenced and represents the global threat of violence to whiteness. The fuse is being lit in cities where there are Black mayors and where cities are perceived as largely Black and non-white. They are trying to light the fuse, and the outrage that people are feeling is making every incident a terribly dangerous one. But the danger is not from the residents of DC but from the occupiers, some in uniform and some not, but the occupation is inflaming and will instigate an incident. This is what I hope doesn't happen, but at the same time I hope that the sense of defiance and the anger that I have seen will remain intact, vigilant, and unified.
And finally, I want to be very clear: This occupation is not an attempt to make our cities safer, but this is a step toward martial law. If you walk or drive around the streets of DC, you will feel it and see it—this is martial law without the declaration. Whether it is declared or not the feelings and appearance are the same. We must continue our defiance and resistance, or we will find that the entire country will be changed and made into a dangerous hostile white plantation once again but for all of us.
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'Their Complicity Is Dangerous': DC Police Chief Slammed for Submitting to Trump's ICE Raids
"The very institution that is supposed to keep district residents safe is now allowing ICE to jeopardize the safety and lives of hardworking immigrants and their families," said one local labor leader.
Aug 14, 2025
The ACLU and a local branch of one of the nation's largest labor unions were among those who condemned Thursday's order by Washington, DC's police chief authorizing greater cooperation with federal forces sent by President Donald Trump to target and arrest undocumented immigrants in the sanctuary city.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith issued an executive order directing MPD officers to assist federal forces including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in sharing information about people in situations including traffic stops. The directive does not apply to people already in MPD custody. The order also allows MPD to provide transportation for federal immigration agencies and people they've detained.
While Trump called the order a "great step," immigrant defenders slammed the move.
"Now our police department is going to be complicit and be reporting our own people to ICE?" DC Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) said. "We have values in this city. Coordination and cooperation means we become a part of the regime."
ACLU DC executive director Monica Hopkins said in a statement that "DC police chief's new order inviting collaboration with ICE is dangerous and unnecessary."
"Immigration enforcement is not the role of local police—and when law enforcement aligns itself with ICE, it fosters fear among DC residents, regardless of citizenship status," Hopkins continued. "Our police should serve the people of DC, not ICE's deportation machine."
"As the federal government scales up Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, including mass deportations, we see how local law enforcement face pressure to participate," she added. "Federal courts across the country have found both ICE and local agencies liable for unconstitutional detentions under ICE detainers. Police departments that choose to carry out the federal government's business risk losing the trust they need to keep communities safe."
Understanding your rights can help you stay calm and advocate for yourself if approached by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or police. 🧵
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— ACLU of the District of Columbia (@aclu-dc.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Jaime Contreras, executive vice president and Latino caucus chair of 32BJ SEIU, a local Service Employees International Union branch, said, "It should horrify everyone that DC's police chief has just laid out the welcoming mat for the Trump administration to continue its wave of terror throughout our city."
"The very institution that is supposed to keep district residents safe is now allowing ICE to jeopardize the safety and lives of hardworking immigrants and their families," Contreras continued. "Their complicity is dangerous enough but helping to enforce Trump's tactics and procedures are a violation of the values of DC residents."
"DC needs a chief who will not cave to this administration's fear tactics aimed at silencing anyone who speaks out against injustice," Contreras added. "We call for an immediate end to these rogue attacks that deny basic due process, separates families, and wrongly deports hardworking immigrants and their families."
The condemnation—and local protests—came as dozens of immigrants have been detained this week as government forces occupy and fan out across the city following Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and federalization of the MPD. The president dubiously declared a public safety emergency on Monday, invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. Trump also said that he would ask the Republican-controlled Congress to authorize an extension of his federal takeover beyond the 30 days allowed under Section 740.
Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser—a Democrat who calls the occupying agencies "our federal partners"—has quietly sought to overturn the capital's Sanctuary Values Amendment Act of 2020, which prohibits MPD from releasing detained individuals to ICE or inquiring about their legal status. The law also limits city officials' cooperation with immigration agencies, including by restricting information sharing regarding individuals in MPD custody.
While the DC Council recently blocked Bowser's attempt to slip legislation repealing the sanctuary policy into her proposed 2026 budget, Congress has the power to modify or even overturn Washington laws under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973. In June, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed Rep. Clay Higgins' (R-La.) District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which would repeal Washington's sanctuary policies and compel compliance with requests from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE. The Senate is currently considering the bill.
Trump's crackdown has also targeted Washington's unhoused population, with MPD conducting sweeps of encampments around the city.
"There's definitely a lot of chaos, fear, and confusion," Amber Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, told CNN Thursday.
David Beatty, an unhoused man living in an encampment near the Kennedy Center that Trump threateningly singled out last week, was among the victims of a Thursday sweep.
Beatty told USA Today that Trump "is targeting and persecuting us," adding that "he wants to take our freedom away."
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