City Comptroller Brad Lander observed immigration hearings Thursday morning at 290 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, then addressed the press afterward, condemning the “lawless” behavior by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who have detained individuals at their routine hearings.
“The last few weeks have been terrifying for New York City’s immigrant communities, for the city itself, this place that has been the greatest immigrant city the world has ever known with an immigrant tradition going back 400 years, and really for the rule of law itself,” Lander said on June 5.
Lander, who is running for mayor, attended hearings Thursday morning as part of the “Friend of the Court” program—an initiative by immigration coalition Immigrant ARC that designates individuals who can observe proceedings and assist respondents in navigating their immigration processes.
He encouraged other New Yorkers to participate in hearings as Friends of the Court in “solidarity” with immigrants undergoing proceedings.
“I’ve felt more useful for the last hour than I have felt almost any time since Donald Trump was elected,” Lander said.
ICE making courts ‘lawless places: Lander
Lander noted the case of Dylan Lopez Contreras, a public school student from the Bronx, who ICE agents detained at an immigration hearing last month. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has described him as an “illegal alien.” On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams said he disagreed with DHS’ assessment and the manner in which Contreras was taken.
The detention came amid a slew of similar incidents at immigration courthouses across the city, in which groups of individuals attending routine immigration hearings have been detained by plainclothes, masked ICE officers. US Rep. Dan Goldman (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan) said last week that he witnessed ICE detentions of immigrants during their immigration hearings at 290 Broadway — which he called “gestapo-like behavior.”
“More recently, we have seen our courts and immigration hearings themselves become essentially lawless places where the due process that everyone is due by international law is being denied them,” Lander said Thursday.
Some Friends of the Court attending recent immigration hearings, including a pastor from Queens, have been arrested by ICE officers in their capacities as observers.
“When I heard that people who were doing court watching, people who were in this Friend of the Court program, pastors, religious leaders, were themselves arrested, I thought it was important for me to show up myself,” Lander said.
Lander said that in the three cases he observed, the judge dismissed the deportation cases, making the individuals subject to expedited removal from the United States.
One hearing, the comptroller said, ended with the immigration judge ruling to separate a family’s case into two. Lander said that though he had expected an encounter with ICE, he and the families he escorted out of the building were grateful to avoid detention.
“All three of these families had filed asylum applications, and what they’re asking for is what they’re due under international law, the chance to present that case, and what the Trump administration is doing is ripping that basic due process right away,” Lander said. “This is not public safety, this is not rule of law, this is not due process, this is just arbitrary cruelty designed to demonize and strike fear and undermine the rule of law in our country and around the world.”
