New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested Tuesday by Department of Homeland Security agents on allegations of assaulting a federal officer.
Hours later, Lander was released from the federal courthouse, where he was joined by New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D). At a news conference outside the courthouse, Hochul announced that charges against Lander had been dropped.
However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York stated it is still “continuing to investigate” Lander’s conduct.
“Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413% increase in assaults against them—it is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law enforcement safety to get a viral moment,” a DHS spokesperson said. “No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.”
Video footage of Lander’s arrest appears to show him holding onto Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they escorted a defendant from immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, repeatedly questioning whether the officials had a judicial warrant.
“I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant!” Lander said in the video. “Where is it?! Where is the warrant?!”
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Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, condemned the arrest, using Democratic Party talking points by calling it an abuse of power and a threat to democracy and asserting that Lander was targeted simply for “asking questions.”
“Arresting a public official, the duly-elected comptroller of the City of New York, for asking questions is dangerous intimidation and shows a wanton disregard for the will of the people of New York,” Lieberman wrote in a statement.
“It sends an unmistakably authoritarian message – that ICE doesn’t care about the rule of law and that anyone exercising their right to challenge ICE and speak up for immigrants will be punished. All elected officials and candidates for office should condemn this arrest in the strongest terms and stand up for New Yorkers,” the statement continued.
New York Attorney General Letitia James described Lander’s actions as “standing up for immigrants.”
“This is profoundly unacceptable,” James wrote in a statement. “Arresting Comptroller Lander for the simple act of standing up for immigrants and their civil rights is a shocking abuse of power. No one should face fear and intimidation in a courthouse, and this is a grotesque escalation of tensions. The administration’s rampant targeting of New Yorkers only makes our communities less safe.”
Other Democrats took to social media to complain not about Landers’ behavior and physical response to the ICE agents, but rather to his arrest.
“This is the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump’s ICE out of control — one can only imagine the fear families across our country feel when confronted with ICE,” former New York Governor and NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo wrote on X. “Fear of separation, fear of being taken from their schools, fear of being detained without just cause. This is not who we are. This must stop, and it must stop now.”
Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer, another Democrat, also demanded that Lander be released “immediately.” “The recent politicization of federal immigration authorities under the Trump administration is disturbing and shameful,” Stringer wrote.”
The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, noted that immigration enforcement operations are civil, rather than criminal, in nature. Therefore, ICE agents operate under administration warrants, not judicial warrants, meaning that Lander was wrong to demand agents present one.
