NEW YORK (AP) — More than a dozen elected officials were arrested Thursday while protesting conditions at a New York City immigration holding facility where a federal judge this week extended a court order requiring the government to shape up its treatment of detainees.
The officials — including the city’s fiscal watchdog and state lawmakers — were among 77 people detained during protests at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The government building, home to immigration court, the FBI‘s New York field office and other federal offices, has become a hotbed of arrests and detention amid President Donald Trump’s .
Eleven officials were arrested inside the building while attempting to inspect holding rooms on the 10th floor that are the subject of ongoing litigation alleging squalid conditions and overcrowding, according to a coalition of politicians, advocates and faith leaders involved in the protest. They were issued summonses and released a short time later.
The officials had gone to the holding facility to see if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was complying with a preliminary injunction issued Wednesday that requires the agency to limit capacity, ensure cleanliness and provide sleeping mats, among other remedies, the coalition said.
But federal agents barred them from entering the holding rooms and arrested them as news reporters and photographers documented the scene. The arrests happened as the officials were conducting a sit-in in the hallway, encircled around a sign showing a slash through the word “ICE.” Agents bound their hands with plastic ties, lined them up against a wall and paraded them down a hall.
One of the arrested politicians, state Sen. Jabari Brisport, said immigration officials used zip ties to lock the doors to the holding areas and put duct tape over cracks to prevent them from seeing inside.
“What I saw on the 10th floor today was both disgusting and cowardly,” the Brooklyn Democrat said. After the immigration officials were finished, “they laughed, and I heard them laugh about what they were doing, and they should absolutely be ashamed of themselves.”
Outside, police arrested dozens of people, including politicians, advocates and religious leaders, who were protesting in front of a garage entrance used by vans transporting immigrants to and from the detention facility.
Other people detained included the city’s comptroller, Brad Lander, a Democrat who was previously arrested at the building in June outside immigration court after he linked arms with a person authorities were attempting to detain; the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams; Democratic state Sen. Julia Salazar; and City Council Member Tiffany Caban.
“A federal judge has indicated that the federal law is not being followed — the conditions are cruel and inhumane, that ICE is not respecting their rights,” Lander told reporters after his release. “And no elected official or other oversight agency has been allowed in to see it.”
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