With hooded ICE agents still prowling the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza to detain immigrants, several New York elected officials demanded Monday that the New York City Police (NYPD) intervene to stop federal agents who violate civil rights or break the law.
Standing in front of Federal Plaza on October 20, Congressman Dan Goldman (D–Brooklyn/Manhattan) revealed that he asked Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to order officers to take action against ICE agents who overstep their duties, warning of the chaos that could unfold in the coming months.
The documented behavior of masked ICE agents at Federal Plaza—including violent detentions of immigrants and assaults on journalists—has been, in Goldman’s words, “amoral, illegal and un-American.”
“Last week I sent a letter to Commissioner Jessica Tisch to alert her to what is likely to happen in New York, because we have already seen it across the country — in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland —: masked, heavily militarized ICE agents assaulting legal residents and American citizens,” Goldman said. “That’s amoral, it’s illegal and it’s un-American. That’s not what this country stands for.”
Goldman asked Tisch to train police officers against a possible incursion of federal agents into the city and to arrest hooded individuals who detain or attack people without a warrant or without being sought by the agency.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The congressman mentioned as an example the viral case of Mónica Moreta-Galarza, who was pushed to the ground inside the immigration court by an ICE supervisor last month while seeking information about her detained husband. ICE initially announced the indefinite suspension of the supervisor — whose identity was never revealed — but the agent returned to work days later.
Goldman was accompanied by Public Defender Jumaane Williams, who did not hold back his indignation as he harshly criticized ICE and President Trump, whom he called a “convicted felon,” while urging the NYPD to intervene.
“We are here because we want to report a crime wave: kidnappings and assaults against New Yorkers. That wave is not only being tolerated, but led by a convicted felon, and it is happening at 26 Federal Plaza,” Williams said. “It is clear that the president is trying to create a new enemy — whether immigrants, journalists, progressives or anyone who denounces his authoritarian regime — and that must stop.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander also joined the call to hold the federal government accountable, recalling incidents in which ICE mistakenly detained the wrong people and mentioning the case of a journalist from our sister publication, amNewYork, who was forcibly removed from a public elevator by masked men. Lander claimed that he himself was mistreated by ICE during a visit to Federal Plaza in June.
Officials clarified that the ICE surveillance proposal would not apply inside 26 Federal Plaza, but on the streets of New York, where they ask that police officers verify the identity of the masked agents and confirm that arrests are made with valid warrants.
“Those who do not present a warrant, identify themselves or prove themselves to be law enforcement officers should be investigated by the NYPD,” Lander said. “Arrests inside this building are legal, but those of us who have been here have seen times when the wrong person is arrested.”
Meanwhile, that same morning, ICE agents were seen again in the hallways of the immigration court, observing families behind their masks. However, amNewYork did not see any arrests during the visit.
