They’re elected to make policy, or to enforce the law. But in recent weeks, several prominent elected officials and a judge have been handcuffed, arrested or charged while protesting President Trump’s immigration agenda.
On Tuesday, Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, was arrested at an immigration court in Lower Manhattan, the latest lawmaker to be swept up in the protests against the administration’s immigration raids and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He was trying to escort a migrant whom agents were seeking to arrest.
Mr. Lander, a candidate in the Democratic primary for mayor, was seen in a video posted to his personal account on X being placed in handcuffs and led into an elevator by men in plain clothes wearing backward baseball caps and surgical masks.
A few of the men wore vests that read “police federal agent.”
“You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens,” Mr Lander said repeatedly, while being jostled by the men.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that Mr. Lander, who was held for several hours and then released, had assaulted and impeded a law enforcement officer, though federal prosecutors did not bring charges on Tuesday.
Here are some other officials who have been detained during ICE protests:
Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California
Mr. Padilla was shoved out of a room, told to drop to his knees in a hallway and handcuffed, after he tried to question Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, during a news conference last Thursday.
“Sir! Sir! Hands off!” Mr. Padilla, 52, shouted as federal agents tried to kick him out of a room inside a government building in Los Angeles where Ms. Noem was speaking.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday called on Ms. Noem to testify at a hearing on Capitol Hill about the forcible removal of Mr. Padilla.
While he was ultimately not charged, Mr. Padilla said Tuesday, “If that is what the administration is willing to do to a United States senator for having the authority to simply ask a question, imagine what they’ll do to any American who dares to speak up.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that Mr. Padilla had not been wearing his Senate security pin and that the Secret Service had taken him for an attacker. She accused Mr. Padilla of engaging in “disrespectful political theater.”
Mayor Ras J. Baraka, Democrat of Newark, N.J.
Federal officials arrested Mr. Baraka, the mayor of Newark, outside an immigration detention center in Newark on May 9. He was taken to another ICE building in Newark and charged with trespassing. He was released about five hours later and was greeted by a crowd that had grown throughout the afternoon to more than 200 supporters.
Mr. Baraka, 55, was trying to join three members of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation for what they said was an oversight visit. Federal officials described the lawmakers’ presence as a “stunt,” but they were allowed to enter.
The mayor was permitted past the front gate, but he was not allowed to join the members of Congress inside. Mr. Baraka was charged with trespassing, after he walked out of the gate to a public area where other protesters were gathered. He was taken into custody by a team of masked federal agents wearing military fatigues in a driveway swarming with protesters and reporters.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Mr. Trump who is now New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney, said that Mr. Baraka had been arrested because he had “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself,” and had chosen “to disregard the law.”
The federal trespassing charge against Mr. Baraka has since been dismissed.
Representative LaMonica McIver, Democrat of New Jersey
Ms. McIver, a United States representative from Newark, was charged last month with assaulting two federal agents as she tried to block the arrest of Mr. Baraka on May 9 outside the new federal immigration detention center in Newark, known as Delaney Hall.
The center began operating in May and quickly became a locus of protest. “It’s political intimidation and I’m looking forward to my day in court,” Ms. McIver, 38, said afterward.
In the criminal complaint, Robert Tansey, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, said that Ms. McIver, in an effort to use her body to prevent the mayor’s arrest, “slammed her forearm” into an agent and “tried to restrain” him by “forcibly grabbing him.”
Judge Hannah C. Dugan, Wisconsin
Judge Dugan of Milwaukee County Circuit Court was arrested in April and accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents. She was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings.
In her courtroom in April, prosecutors said, the judge steered an undocumented immigrant who was appearing before her in a domestic abuse case to a separate exit from a hallway where immigration officers were waiting to arrest him. Judge Dugan has pleaded not guilty.
After leaving her courtroom, the immigrant, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, was followed by federal agents and arrested outside the courthouse. Mr. Flores-Ruiz, an immigrant from Mexico, was in the United States illegally, federal authorities have said.
Judge Dugan, 66, who was elected to her nonpartisan position in 2016, has tried to get the charge dismissed, but the Justice Department said that she did not have judicial immunity from criminal prosecution.
She has been temporarily removed from the bench by the Wisconsin Supreme Court while the case against her advances.
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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