New York City mayoral candidate finds it 'remarkable' DHS agents who arrested him were both immigrants

New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said on Tuesday that it was "remarkable" to him that some of the officers who arrested him outside an immigration court were themselves immigrants.
Video footage of Lander's arrest appeared to show him hanging onto Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they escorted a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, repeatedly asking officials if they had a judicial warrant.
"I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant," Lander said in the video. "Where is it? Where is the warrant?"
Lander described how "angry" and "sad" he was at the experience on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes," pointing out what he seemed to consider an irony that some of the arresting officers were immigrant New Yorkers.
"I got to say about who two of the agents were, because this was kind of remarkable in itself," Lander said. "The arresting officer is a Pakistani Muslim who lives in Brighton Beach, and the second officer is an Indo-Guyanese immigrant who lives in South Ozone Park in Queens. Both immigrants."
He added, "Immigrant New Yorkers, whoever they are, have a lot of the same issues. And some of that is affordable housing. And some of that is knowing that Donald Trump is coming for New York City. And we need elected officials who will stand up."
Hayes asked what it said to him that the arresting officers were both immigrants defending an ICE operation.
"It says to me that what Trump is trying to do is to drive a wedge into our country," Lander answered.
Lander was released after being detained for a few hours. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a press conference after his release that the charges against Lander were dropped.
In response to the incident, a DHS spokesperson said, "Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413% increase in assaults against them—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," the spokesperson said.

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Chicago Tribune

18 minutes ago

• Chicago Tribune

ICE took her mother. Now, a 6-year-old is left without a guardian or legal path back to reunite in Honduras.

As Gabriela crossed the stage at her kindergarten graduation in Chicago, she scanned the audience, desperately searching for a familiar face. But her mother was nowhere to be found. Still, wearing a pink dress and ballerina flats, Gabriela, 6, smiled and twirled around holding a bouquet on her way home. An older neighbor who sometimes cares for her walked by her side. Just a week earlier, on June 4, her mother, Wendy Sarai Pineda, 39, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside an office in downtown Chicago during what was supposed to be a routine check-in, while Gabriela was at school. The little girl doesn't understand why her mother vanished and had hoped her mother would be at her graduation, said Camerino Gomez, Pineda's fiance. 'I told her that she went to get some paperwork ready so that they can be together in Honduras,' Gomez, 55, said. 'And that I will take her to be with her soon.' But Gomez doesn't know if that's even possible. He has no legal guardianship over Gaby, as he calls her. The girl, who is a Honduran citizen, has an asylum case pending. And with Pineda being held at the Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky before being deported to Honduras, there's no clear way to secure a power of attorney for Gomez to travel with the girl. ICE, he said, has not been responsive to him or the lawyer for the mother and daughter. 'She is afraid that the state or the government will take (Gaby) away from her,' Gomez said. 'She's afraid she'll never see her ever again.' When parents are detained or deported by immigration authorities, their children — many of them U.S. citizens, others, like Gaby, in the U.S. without legal permission — are often left behind to navigate the fallout alone. Some are placed in the care of relatives, while others may end up in foster care. All face the emotional trauma of sudden separation, sometimes compounded by economic instability and legal uncertainty. Reunification is often blocked by bureaucratic hurdles, Chicago advocates say. Despite life-altering consequences, there is currently no federal protocol to ensure that children are reunited with their deported parents. Their well-being is left to chance, in a system that wasn't built to protect them.'An infrastructure for children left behind when their parents are deported does not exist,' said Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project, an organization that offers legal help for immigrants. 'It makes this heartbreaking situation even harder for families.' Advocates estimate about 20 people, including Pineda, were detained by immigration officers on June 4 following a confrontation involving local officials and ICE agents in the South Loop. According to Gomez, Pineda had received a message to attend an appointment that morning at an office housing the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, an ICE-run alternative to detention that ensures compliance with immigration processes. The mother, who came from Honduras with Gaby in May 2023 to seek asylum, was not aware that she had a prior deportation order from entering the United States without authorization years before. Still, the Biden administration allowed her into the country with her daughter because she did not pose a threat to the country and had no criminal record, her attorney Elisa Drew said. For the last few years, Pineda had been checking in with ICE. That's what she intended to do June 4. 'She wanted to get to the office early so she could come home early,' Gomez said. 'Instead, she wasn't allowed to leave.'Masked federal agents pulled Pineda and more than a dozen others from the ICE office and loaded them into unmarked white vans as relatives watched, many in tears. She is now being held in Kentucky, awaiting deportation. Many of the detained that day were parents who had been complying with check-ins for years, said Antonio Gutierrez, co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations. The parents, he said, are desperate to know how their children are doing. Most have been sleeping on the floor at the detention center because of overcrowding, according to Gladis Yolanda Chavez, another immigrant mother who was detained June 4. There is no clear data on the number of children who have been left behind. Their ages range from newborns to high schoolers. In past administrations, immigrants would be given some time to purchase plane tickets back to their home countries and then escorted to the airport, Drew said. And though that is what Pineda would have wanted to do, she couldn't. 'They were thinking maybe they could leave as a family unit. I thought they would be safer,' Drew said. At home, Gaby keeps asking where her mother went.'She told me that when she sees her mom's clothes, she remembers her and gets more sad,' Gomez said. In recent weeks, immigration attorneys have told the Tribune that ICE has ramped up the visibility of enforcement across Chicago and other sanctuary cities, targeting people at court hearings and during check-ins.'To have a parent taken away suddenly like that … can have lifelong implications for their development and for their socialization — night terrors, screaming, crying uncontrollably,' said Caitlin Patler, an associate professor of public policy at the University of California at who met Gaby after getting engaged to her mother in November, said he would like to take Gaby back to Honduras, but ICE has the child's passport and the power of attorney. After more than two weeks, ICE has been unresponsive, Drew said. Though Gomez has tried to reach out to the Honduran Consulate in Chicago and other organizations, he has gotten little to no response. 'What do I do if Gaby gets sick, if she needs something that requires her parents to be here?' he said. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which intervenes only in cases of abuse or neglect, said in a statement that it works with families regardless of immigration status. If a child is found to be neglected and a parent is detained or deported, the agency aims to place them with relatives and reunify them with their parents, sometimes with the help of foreign consulates. The Mexican Consulate visits each detainee at the immigration processing center in Broadview before they are transferred to a detention center to provide a power of attorney or custody letter if they have a child in the country. Other countries, however, do not have that type of structure. Due to the political turmoil, Venezuela, for example, does not have a consulate in the United from the Resurrection Project, urges families to create an emergency family plan that includes discussing with a loved one who can care for the children if the caregiver is detained, and having the necessary documents ready for family reunification. The situation can be even more complicated when parents in the country without legal permission have U.S.-born children, said Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University who studies deportation enforcement. Some parents may choose to leave the child in the U.S., even if they are sent to another country, for safety, stability or the promise of a better future. Every situation is different, Stevens added. 'Nobody chooses their country of birth. Nobody chooses their parents,' she said. Gaby didn't choose to be in the U.S. with someone she had only known for a year, said Gomez. Pineda is afraid that in the midst of it all, Gaby will be lost in the system. 'But there's no way she can stay here without her mother,' Drew said. 'She needs to be reunited with her.' Different community groups have collaborated with Chicago Public Schools to create 'sanctuary teams' to help alleviate the anxiety and stress experienced by kids by providing essential resources for families, including medical assistance, clothing, food and mental health support. Some educators expressed concern to the Tribune about that support being cut off during the summer months. Other groups use school buildings as spaces to meet even through the summer, said Vanessa Trejo, a school-based clinician with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. During the school year, Trejo worked with a boy whose mom was also detained and deported by ICE. She said it directly affected his ability to focus in class. Trejo met with the student twice a day. He would cry and they would play games. 'I try to sit with him. Just having a physical being around is huge,' Trejo student, who was born in the U.S., was in the process of obtaining his passport so he could be with his mother, she said. As for Gaby, her future is uncertain, Gomez said. Her mother is still in detention, and there is no timeline for when or where she'll be deported. Let alone when she'll see Gaby again. In the meantime, Gaby spends her days with an elderly neighbor, Maria Ofelia Ponce, 74, while Gomez is at work. Other times, Gomez's older daughter and his brother's family help take care of her. 'It breaks my heart to see her alone. To not know what will happen to her,' Ponce said. At Gaby's graduation, as mothers in dresses held their children in their graduation gowns, Gaby's family had a small gathering to celebrate her, hoping to help her feel loved.

Atlantic

26 minutes ago

• Atlantic

Latinos Vote Differently Under Threat

Recently, in Los Angeles, protesters waving Mexican flags amid burning vehicles and law enforcement in riot gear have resurrected memories of 1994, when similar scenes defined Latino political identity for a generation. During that year's movement against California Proposition 187, which sought to bar undocumented immigrants from accessing education, health care, and social services, Latino citizens banded together with recent arrivals of varying legal status in solidarity. This was a catalyzing moment that spurred many Latinos not only in California, but across the country, to understand themselves as an aggrieved ethnic minority, and to vote as a bloc. Now, three decades later, something similar might be taking place. The escalation of immigration raids around Los Angeles and Donald Trump's deployment of military forces—over Governor Gavin Newsom's objection—to quell anti-ICE protests have heightened fears among many Latinos that they are under systemic attack. The forcible removal of Senator Alex Padilla from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's press conference after he tried to ask her about ICE raids has only added to the unease. Even though many social metrics suggest that Latinos are assimilating into the U.S. mainstream, the MAGA movement keeps reminding them that it does not consider them fully American. On Friday, Vice President J. D. Vance, who served in the Senate with Padilla, mocked him and called him 'José Padilla.' Out of dissatisfaction with the economy under Joe Biden, more Latinos voted for Trump in November than in his two previous bids. That historic showing was widely viewed as a turn away from ethnic politics. The reality is more nuanced: Latinos have always been primarily focused on economic issues, but they will coalesce as an ethnic voting bloc when they sense a serious threat to their community. American Latinos are a diverse group. Many see themselves as a mainstay of the country's working class and as strivers eager to build a better life for their family. Latinos responded strongly to the Trumpist GOP's economic populism. Last year, Latino voters told pollsters that issues such as inflation, jobs, and housing costs were their highest priorities; immigration was farther down the list. The overwhelming majority of Latino voters today were born in the United States; from 2002 to 2022, the proportion of newly registered Latino voters in Los Angeles County who were foreign-born dropped from 54 percent to less than 9 percent. This helps explain why immigration issues resonated less among Latinos in November than at any other point in the past three decades. NBC News exit polls estimated that 46 percent of Latinos voted for Trump last year, up from 32 percent in 2020. Other researchers estimated that Trump improved his standing among Latino men by 35 points, narrowly winning the demographic. The rightward shift wasn't an abandonment of Latino identity; it was an expression of these voters' sense of what they, and people like them, want from their government. Aspiring Latino families, hit hard by inflation and housing costs, responded to promises of economic relief. Since Trump's inauguration, his support among Latinos has dropped—a trend that was first detectable after the president's 'Liberation Day' tariff announcements sapped consumer confidence and cast global financial markets into chaos. In a mid-April poll of Latino voters, 60 percent said that Trump and congressional Republicans were not focusing on bringing down the cost of everyday goods, and 66 percent thought that tariffs would raise prices and hurt their economic security. Read: Why did Latinos vote for Trump? Now Trump's immigration crackdown in California and elsewhere is undoubtedly adding to his declining position among Latinos. According to a poll last month, Latino respondents agreed by a 66–29 margin that Trump's 'actions are going too far and targeting the types of immigrants who strengthen our nation.' When immigration enforcement is perceived as targeting entire communities rather than focusing narrowly on dangerous criminals, it activates deeper questions about belonging and acceptance in American society. When that happens, the effects can be long-lasting. In 1994, Proposition 187's anti-immigrant provisions generated massive Latino turnout against Republicans, fundamentally reshaping the state's political landscape to Democrats' advantage. In the midterms of 2018, Trump's immigration rhetoric and family-separation policies drove another wave of Latino political mobilization, contributing to Democratic gains across the country. That year, in the midst of ICE raids in communities, Latino voters increased voter turnout to its highest level in midterm history; they cast ballots against Republicans by an equally historic margin. The recent L.A. protests represent a potential third such moment. The rough treatment of Padilla, a California native of Mexican ancestry, at Noem's press conference exemplified how Trump's moves against immigrants could bring harm to U.S.-born Latinos as well. In a fiery Senate speech days after Homeland Security agents pushed him to the floor and handcuffed him, Padilla focused mostly on the Trump administration's extreme and un-American use of executive power. Yet he was implicitly making another point: Not even an MIT graduate who is a U.S. senator for his home state has a secure seat at the American table. Padilla is separated by a generation from the immigrant experience, but he was still forced out of an event in a government building. Recent events are resonating with Latinos outside California—even in South Florida, where Cuban Americans are a core Republican constituency. In October, Florida International University's poll of likely Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County reported that 68 percent intended to vote for Trump, by far the largest level of support for him on record. Yet Trump's recent immigration actions—including his decision to end the humanitarian parole program for Cubans, revoking temporary legal status for thousands of immigrants—are testing these loyalties. 'This is not what we voted for,' State Senator Ileana Garcia, a co-founder of Latinas for Trump, declared on X earlier this month. Across the country, Latino votes are very much in play. Fully one-third of all Latino voters today were not even alive when Proposition 187 was on the ballot. As images of federal agents confronting Latino protesters spread across social media and prompt kitchen-table conversations, the question isn't whether Latinos will remain politically engaged; it's which party will better understand the full dimensions of Latino political identity. Democrats cannot assume Latino support based solely on opposition to harsh immigration policies, and Republicans cannot maintain Latino voters through economic appeals alone if those same voters feel that their communities are under siege.

CBS News

28 minutes ago

• CBS News

"We want real conservatives, real Republicans" says Texas GOP Chair in planned lawsuit against the state to close Republican primaries

Texas Republican Party Chairman Abraham George said the party intends to sue the state of Texas to close the Republican primaries. In an interview for Eye On Politics, George told CBS News Texas, "We wanted to have closed primaries for many, many years now. We've had this as a priority as part of the platform for many cycles. We expected our legislators to take care of this at the legislative session in the last convention that was held in San Antonio in the 2024 convention, about 10,000 people in the delegation came together and said we're going to change our rules to have the Republican primaries closed. We had about three bills in the last legislative session that we liked and we expected to pass, but unfortunately, that did not happen." George said this left the party with no other option than to file suit against the state. "The state law does not allow us to have a closed primary. So we're just trying to get the court to tell us that the Republican Party of Texas has the right to have closed primaries and we have the right to associate with the people that we believe are Republicans. We are expecting our statewide leaders to be on our side on this." He said this is crucial for the party to avoid interference from Democrats. "There is a reason why the party is frustrated with this process of any Democrat can come and choose the Republican nominee and find the weakest Republican or even a liberal and put them on our ballot under our name, and we had worked to get them elected. So we're kind of done with that. So we want real conservatives, real Republicans who will uphold the party's principles and our priorities." The plan to sue the state comes months before the state's March 2026 primary, which features an already contentious battle between U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate. George said he didn't think closed primaries will have an impact on this race. "I don't know if there's going to be a huge difference. It's going to make any big difference in that election itself, but I don't know. I haven't looked at any of the numbers. This is not specific to any specific election, including the 2026 primaries. What we are trying to do is something we've been working on for close to a decade to close our primaries." Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder tells CBS News Texas the party has no plans to seek closed primaries. Full interview with the Texas GOP Chair below: