New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was released after being arrested by federal agents at immigration court Tuesday after linking arms with the person authorities were trying to detain, AP News reported.
Lander’s arrest occurred at a federal building in Manhattan, yet another confrontation between a U.S. agent and a Democratic politician objecting to Trump’s administration’s deportation programs. Lander said he was observing immigration court hearings and told reporters that he was there to help some immigrants out of the building safely.
A group of agents moved in to detail an immigrant who had exited a courtroom, so Lander locked arms with the man and demanded to see a judicial warrant. Still, agents tried to physically separate the two by pulling the two men.
Eventually, the agents pulled the two men apart and put Lander in handcuffs for obstructing.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer,” AP News reported.
Lander was released after a few hours, but the U.S. attorney’s office said it was investigating his actions and would decide whether or not to charge him with a crime.
This isn’t the first time an episode like this has happened. Just last week, Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a news conference in Los Angeles for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as he tried to speak about immigration raids. A little over a month ago, Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on a trespassing charge outside a federal immigration detention center in his city, but the charge was eventually dropped.
