Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Tuesday arrested New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also a Democratic mayoral candidate. Lander’s arrest is the latest in a string of Trump administration attacks on elected officials, but appears to be the first arrest carried out by ICE agents. Sure, ICE doesn’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens, but an administration that already illegally deployed troops in Los Angeles and is letting them illegally arrest people doesn’t care about such niceties.
Lander’s alleged offense appears to be accompanying an immigrant who was leaving immigration court and asking ICE agents to produce their judicial warrant. Doing so now allows ICE to spring into action and arrest Lander, a citizen, for obstructing their arrest of a migrant they say is subject to removal. But it isn’t at all evident that ICE agents have the authority to arrest citizens, even if they really, really want to.
ICE has broad authority to detain and arrest undocumented migrants who are subject to removal from the country. DHS and immigration judges can issue administrative warrants, which do not allow them to enter or search private spaces. Those warrants can serve as the basis to arrest an undocumented person if they are in public, however. But they aren’t the same as judicial warrants, which require compliance from everyone and allow the search of private locations.
But in order to hit the 3,000 arrests per day demanded by Donald Trump adviser and ghoul-in-chief Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE need some easy wins. With the help of immigration courts, the Department of Homeland Security developed a truly repugnant scheme to make this happen.
DHS attorneys are dismissing pending immigration cases against people who show up to court for a scheduled appearance as required. The immigration judge agrees to the dismissal, leaving the migrant believing they are free to go, but when they step outside the courtroom, they are arrested by ICE agents because they no longer have a pending immigration case and are therefore subject to removal.
The problem for ICE goons is that while this ruse allows them to detain an undocumented person, they have no authority to arrest U.S. citizens. In fact, when DHS partners with state and local police for immigration enforcement, even those officers are only allowed to detain and interrogate suspected noncitizens.
Which brings us back to Brad Lander, who was dragged away by masked ICE agents when he tried to walk out of the courthouse with an immigrant and requested that ICE produce a judicial warrant. ICE likely had an administrative warrant to detain the immigrant walking with Lander, because if they were a victim of the dismissal trick, they were now subject to removal. But that piece of paper holds no sway over Lander.
Department of Homeland Security flack Tricia McLaughlin announced that Lander was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer. She also took the opportunity to trot out the tired lie that the real victims here are ICE agents and that “if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.”
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McLaughlin’s statement isn’t just meant to spread the lie that Lander was arrested because he assaulted law enforcement personnel. It’s also meant to obscure who is allowed to do the arresting. McLaughlin doesn’t refer to ICE agents, but instead to “law enforcement” generally.
It’s not like ICE agents are clearly identifying themselves these days regardless. The people who arrested Lander included someone wearing a tactical vest labeled only with “federal agent,” people in plainclothes wearing surgical masks, and someone wearing a full face mask and tactical gear. These are not people who are even inclined to properly identify themselves and their agency, much less obey laws about who they can arrest.
Of course, by now, it’s clear that Lander is not an outlier and his arrest is not just a single moment of unwarranted escalation that won’t happen again. The Trump administration is now routinely figuring out ways to arrest elected officials for daring to oppose its immigration crackdown.
In April, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan, a sitting Wisconsin state judge, for allegedly helping an immigrant evade ICE while at the courthouse. At the time, that felt like the most outrageous thing that could happen, with FBI officers arresting her as she arrived for work at the courthouse. At least FBI officers really are allowed to arrest people.
Only two weeks later, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for trespassing at an ICE facility, although arrested by whom is a bit murky, as DHS blurred the faces of everyone manhandling Baraka. When Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, LaMonica McIver, and Robert Menendez Jr. visited the facility in the wake of Baraka’s arrest as part of their required congressional oversight duties, DHS Secretary Noem accused them of committing felonies. Former Trump personal attorney and current underqualified Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba later indicted McIver for “assaulting, resisting, impeding, and interfering” with federal officers.
The administration’s ongoing assault on Los Angeles has also already resulted in DHS goons attacking Sen. Alex Padilla and dragging him away for daring to ask Noem a question she didn’t like. Border czar Tom Homan threatened to arrest Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass if he felt like they were hindering ICE.
So, to recap: ICE agents who refuse to officially identify as ICE agents are now apparently arresting U.S. politicians who are citizens. Active-duty troops are apparently performing law enforcement duties in Los Angeles in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Politicians are being arrested or threatened with arrest for any resistance to the administration, even just for asking a question. It isn’t even all that important which combination of thugs the administration deploys to do this, because it’s a wholesale assault on democracy no matter what.