While the ICE arrest of City Comptroller Brad Lander enraged New Yorkers on Tuesday, he was not the only person physically manhandled and assaulted by federal officers.
Before Lander’s arrest, amNewYork observed dozens of masked ICE agents apprehending immigrants inside 26 Federal Plaza on June 17 — continuing a weeks-long effort to seize undocumented individuals who had moments earlier followed court orders to attend mandatory hearings, giving them little to no warning of their impending arrest.
With black ski masks and baseball caps obscuring their faces, the agents took hold of confused and terrified immigrants without warning. Like an assembly line, the armed agents lay in wait outside of courtrooms on both the 12th and 14th floors and tightly grasped the arms of those who had just completed attending mandatory court hearings.
Legal representatives told amNewYork that once a case is dismissed, a person has a month to appeal, but ICE is not affording these individuals the time or freedom to do so.
With many attendees being unable to speak English, their legal representatives say they are unable to understand why they are being abducted by masked agents.
In one shocking moment, a woman pleaded with agents to let a man go after stating that he was still eligible to remain in the country. She attempted to hand the detained man a folder of documents, only for an ICE agent to violently shove her to the ground.
Meg Barnette, Brad Lander’s wife, witnessed this moment when she accompanied her husband to observe immigration proceedings on Tuesday.
“When we arrived today, the elevator doors opened, and there were ICE agents getting ready to bring the gentleman onto our elevator. We stopped, we blocked that elevator door. They stepped back, and there was a young woman who clearly was with this gentleman, and she wanted to connect and give him some papers, and she was told that she could not, and they pushed her to the ground,” Barnette recalled. “That was somebody she loved, and it was horrifying to see.”
Barnette spoke after her husband was put in cuffs by ICE while attempting to escort another man, only identified as Edgardo, out of the building. If ICE was willing to manhandle Lander and assault another woman directly outside of court, she said she could only speculate what is happening in ICE detention.
“I’m very aware of how I feel right now, having watched Brad taken away and knowing he is going to be okay, but all those other families in there can’t say that,” Barnette said.
Following his release with all charges being dropped Tuesday afternoon, Lander himself told reporters that his thoughts remained with the man from whom he was violently ripped.
“At that elevator, I was separated from someone named Edgardo, who I had just met a couple of minutes earlier. Edgardo is in ICE detention, and he’s not going to sleep in his bed tonight,” the comptroller and mayoral candidate said. “So far as I know, he has no lawyer. He has been stripped of his due process rights by the government.”
