New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander has spoken out against U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of operating a “fascist regime,” after being detained by immigration authorities at a Manhattan courthouse.
Lander was accompanying an immigrant out of a courtroom on Tuesday when masked federal agents apprehended him.
Footage of the chaotic incident shows Lander being manhandled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as he and a group of his staff walked with a man, whom he later identified as Edgardo, from his hearing.
In the video, Lander can be heard asking federal agents if they have a judicial warrant.
“I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant…. Where is it?” he says, encircled by masked agents. The agents were mostly non-verbal during the arrest, except for occasionally telling Lander to stop resisting.
“You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens,” he told officials as they cuffed his hands behind his back.
The Department of Homeland Security said that Lander was charged with assaulting or impeding a federal officer.
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The episode occurred as federal immigration officials are conducting large-scale arrests outside immigration courtrooms across the country, as ICE works to detain and deport people who they say are illegally in the U.S.
At a press conference shortly after his arrest, Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, who recalled being “shoved out of the way” during the incident, said her husband was “swarmed by a number of federal agents” when he tried to link arms with a man after his immigration court hearing was dismissed.
Edgardo was also arrested and taken to an ICE detention facility, Lander said in an interview after being released.
After being released, Lander told political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen on Tuesday that he was held in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention facility for about three-and-a-half hours, but swiftly turned his attention to the man he was trying to help.
“I’m going to sleep at home in my bed tonight, safe with my family. But Edgardo, who I was trying to accompany, he is in ICE detention. God knows where he’s going to sleep tonight … and who knows in what state? He has no lawyer. No one even knows to look for him. He has been stripped of his due process rights, and the right asylum seekers have to present the credible fear of persecution, ” he said.
Lander has made several trips to immigration court in recent weeks, after DHS changed its practices by dismissing asylum cases, which Lander told CNN equates to “stripping people of their asylum seeker status” and subjects them to “expedited removal” from the U.S., adding later on X that “we will all be worse off if we let Donald Trump and his fascist regime undermine the rule of law.”
Lander said he will keep returning to court “week after week to make sure the people’s rights are protected.”
He is a candidate in New York’s Democratic mayoral primary. Early voting in the contest is underway, with the election set for next week.
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