New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was released Tuesday hours after his arrest in connection with an episode at a federal courthouse in the city, where Lander and his wife said they were serving as advocates for defendants in immigration court.
The Department of Homeland Security said Lander, a mayoral candidate, had been arrested for "assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer." In a brief statement on social media, DHS said: “It is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law enforcement safety to get a viral moment. No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.”
After his release, Lander denied assaulting law enforcement. “I will not characterize the events, but I certainly did not assault an officer,” he told reporters and a crowd of supporters who had gathered to greet him.
"We are not going to allow Donald Trump to wreck the rule of law, to deny people due process, and to turn our country into something that doesn’t meet its obligations under international law," Lander said.
"We are normalizing the destruction of constitutional democracy, and we’re not going to stand by and let it happen," he added.
Lander is running in next week’s Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul accompanied the comptroller as he was released and told reporters, "to my knowledge" any charges against Lander had been dropped and he "walks out of there a free man."
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said there would be no court appearance for Lander, as it continues to investigate the matter.
Hochul also called Lander’s arrest “total bull---” in a post on X.
“When elected officials are being detained without cause, we have to ask: what the hell is happening to our country? This federal overreach cannot go unchecked,” Hochul said in her post. “We must meet this moment and protect our rights and values.”
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Kat Capossela, Lander's mayoral campaign press secretary, told NBC News in an email earlier in the day that “Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE,” a reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after “escorting a defendant out of immigration court." Lander's wife, Meg Barnette, during a news conference shortly after her husband’s arrest, criticized the Trump administration's handling of cases involving immigrants.
The incident marked the latest in a series of dramatic confrontations between immigration officials and Democrats opposing President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
Last week, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a news conference with Homeland Security Secretary Kristin Noem. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was then a gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, was also arrested on trespassing charges last month at an ICE detention facility in the state. The charges against him were dropped, but Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was subsequently charged with assaulting law enforcement during the incident. Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, also suggested that California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could be arrested too.
The Democratic officials and their allies have argued that the incidents were politically motivated and criticized the administration's conduct, while the Trump administration has fiercely defended immigration agents and accused Democrats of staging political stunts.
In a video posted to Lander's personal account on X, he can be seen surrounded by people, including masked officers in vests labeled with the word "police." At one point, someone can be heard saying "put him in custody," and the men holding Lander scuffle with the comptroller before pinning him to a wall and handcuffing him.
“I’m not obstructing, I’m standing right here in the hallway. I asked to see the judicial warrant,” Lander says in the video.
“You don’t have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens asking for a judicial warrant,” he adds.
Lander was then led into an elevator with his hands behind his back as an aide can be heard asking, “Where are you taking the comptroller of the city of New York?”
During her news conference, Lander's wife echoed Democratic criticisms of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, arguing that judges were dismissing charges against defendants before being turned over to federal agents to begin the process of deporting them.
“This is not the way we deal with rule of law, this is not the way people are treated in the United States,” Barnette, a former attorney, said.
“I feel really rattled and scared, and my husband is a candidate for mayor, is an elected citywide official, is U.S. citizen,” she said. "And all of the other folks in that building are risking having their families torn apart with inadequate explanation. And it’s an abomination.”
She added that a member of Lander's New York Police Department security detail accompanied him along with the law enforcement officers who detained him.
Prominent city officials and politicians joined Barnette at the news conference outside the courthouse, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán and Assemblyman and fellow mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat seeking the nomination to become the city's next mayor, on X called the episode "the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump's ICE."
In a statement, state Attorney General Letitia James criticized "the administration's rampant targeting of New Yorkers" and called the episode "a grotesque escalation of tensions."
