An aide to US Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was handcuffed and briefly detained by Department of Homeland Security police in his Manhattan office on Wednesday.
The video of the incident, first shared and reported on by Gothamist’s Arya Sundaram on Friday, shows DHS officers entering Nadler’s district office and accusing staff members of “harboring rioters.” An aide, whose face was blurred out, is crying while being handcuffed.
According to Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s chief of staff, who spoke with The New York Times, the federal agents were angry because the congressman’s team had seen the officers detaining migrants in the building—Nadler’s office is one floor above a federal immigration court—and because his staff had invited advocates who had also witnessed the detentions into the representative’s office.
The aide was not arrested and not charged with a crime, both Nadler’s office and a DHS spokesperson confirmed to Gothamist.
“The Trump administration is trying to intimidate members of Congress,” Nadler told the Times in an interview on Saturday. “They’re behaving like fascists.” President Donald Trump and his administration are using “totalitarian or even authoritarian practices” Nadler said. “We have to fight them. We don’t want to be a fascist country.”
The DHS statement on Thursday made no mention of Nadler’s team “harboring rioters,” as the agents claimed the day before. Instead, according to the statement, the agents entered Nadler’s office because they had been told that protesters were there and were concerned for the safety of his staff members.
Two immigration advocates present at the time, who asked Gothamist to remain anonymous, said that they were at the courthouse advising migrants as plainclothes ICE officers were questioning people there for court appearances. The advocates say they were threatened with arrest for loitering by the officers and were then invited, along with another advocate, to Nadler’s office by his staff.
In the video, a staff member who was not detained is standing in a doorway and asks one of the agents to show her a warrant. The agent claims the officers do not need a warrant and walks past her. Another officer, the one handcuffing the aide, is heard telling her not to resist. The aide is heard asking officers, “What’s your problem?” adding, “they’re here for a meeting. They’re constituents.”
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Protests against immigration enforcement happened throughout the day. Hours after the confrontation inside Nadler’s office, police arrested nearly two dozen demonstrators they allege blocked traffic outside the building, an NYPD spokesperson said, according to Gothamist’s reporting.
Trump’s campaign against migrants—including those with documentation and those without—has been a defining part of his second run for office and first several months as president. His administration has instructed immigration officers to arrest people immediately after a judge has ordered them to be deported or after prosecutors move to drop their cases—a directive made possible after Trump rescinded policies which did not allow ICE to conduct enforcement operations at or near courthouses or in “sensitive” areas, like schools and churches.
Last month, also in New York City, a 20-year-old Bronx public school student was detained by federal immigration officers after his asylum case was dismissed by a judge. ICE agents were waiting outside to detain Dylan, the first known city public school student to be detained by immigration enforcement. He’s since sued the Trump administration using a “habeas corpus” petition.
And, earlier in May, federal prosecutors charged Newark Mayor Ras Baraka with trespassing after agents arrested him outside the fence of the Delaney Hall detention center—an incident that quickly went viral and sparked intense backlash and protests. Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, who was also at the detention center seeking information from immigration officials, has been charged with assault.
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Following the reporting this week of his aide being handcuffed in his downtown office, Nadler wrote in a statement that Trump and DHS are “sowing chaos in our communities, using intimidation tactics against both citizens and non-citizens in a reckless and dangerous matter.”
Nadler said that DHS’s decision to enter a congressional office and detain a staff member shows a “deeply troubling disregard” for “proper legal boundaries.”
“If this can happen in a Member of Congress’s office,” the statement reads, “it can happen to anyone—and it is happening.”
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The post “They’re Behaving Like Fascists”: Rep. Jerry Nadler Denounces DHS After Aide Is Detained, Handcuffed appeared first on Vanity Fair.
