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‘We Must Escalate’: Arrested Legislators Call Out ICE and Albany

Three months after the state legislature ended session without passing immigration protections, 15 elected officials faced down arrest to protest ICE and state inaction.

Isabelle Taft · September 19, 2025

“Where is our governor?” state Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes said at a protest against ICE Thursday. | Isabelle Taft / New York Focus

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Fifteen elected officials, including 11 state legislators, were arrested Thursday at a Manhattan federal building where immigrants have been detained as they protested President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and called on the state and city to mount a stronger opposition to it.

The protest took place as federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to ramp up arrests and detain record numbers of immigrants, including across New York state.

It also marked three months since the state legislature ended its annual session without passing immigration protection bills that advocates have framed as key to countering Trump’s agenda. Legislative leadership failed to bring the New York for All Act, which would prohibit state and local authorities from collaborating with ICE, up for a floor vote, despite strong support for the bill from immigrant rights groups and members of the state’s congressional delegation.

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The Dignity Not Detention Act, which would prohibit county jails from detaining people for ICE, also didn’t get a vote. Protesters called on Governor Kathy Hochul to call a special legislative session to pass those and other measures.

“Where is our governor?” state Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes said in Spanish at a press conference after the arrests.

“We have work to do and we are ready to go back to Albany and do that work,” Mitaynes said.

For months, the building at 26 Federal Plaza has been in the national spotlight, as ICE has routinely arrested people there after they attended immigration court hearings or scheduled check-ins with the agency. ICE also detains people on the 10th floor of the building in what it calls a “processing center,” which it has used to house people for days at a time in crowded, squalid conditions.

“We have work to do and we are ready to go back to Albany and do that work.”

—Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes

Ten members of the state legislature and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander were arrested on the 10th floor after being denied access to the areas where people are held.

“I feel a responsibility as an official — a responsibility to my constituents, and to New Yorkers — to escalate non-violently in response when the federal government is kidnapping our neighbors and trying to disappear them,” said state Senator Julia Salazar, who was arrested on the 10th floor.

The New York City Police Department arrested four other elected officials, including a state assemblymember and city public advocate Jumaane Williams, outside the building when they joined a crowd blocking a driveway that ICE vehicles use to transport detained immigrants from the building. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The protest began shortly after 3 pm, when a group of elected officials went to the 10th floor and demanded entry to the holding area. Participants said that staff there used tape to close off a narrow crack in the doorway and tied the doors shut with wire. The officials were eventually charged with blocking and obstructing entrances and hallways and received summonses to federal court for November.

Police arrest protesters outside Manhattan's 26 Federal Plaza Thursday. | Isabelle Taft / New York Focus

Outside, dozens of people, including faith leaders, members of the activist groups Jewish Voice for Peace and Sunrise Movement, and elected officials sat down in the driveway with signs reading “ICE OUT OF NY” and “PASS NY FOR ALL!” After about an hour, police issued a disbursal order and began arresting people with plastic zip ties.

Organizers said nearly 70 people were arrested outside. An NYPD spokesperson said Thursday evening that he could not confirm the number because people were still being processed.

New York City Councilmember Alexa Avilés, chair of the Committee on Immigration, said she expects the Trump administration to further ramp up immigration enforcement in New York City — and for elected officials to engage in more acts of civil disobedience.

“I think it’s a little bit of a preview,” she said.

Assemblymember Robert Carroll called on the state to turn off the power to 26 Federal Plaza.

“They say we couldn’t enter there because we were state elected officials,” he said. “Well, the state of New York does not have to give power to this building. … They have escalated. We must escalate back.”

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As legislators vowed to intensify their tactics, an employee at 26 Federal Plaza watching their press conference expressed frustration at their rhetoric. The employee, who works for US Citizenship and Immigration Services and declined to give his name, accused the officials of “invading the building” and creating safety hazards and headaches for people who work there.

“A lot of us don’t agree with what Trump is doing,” he said. “But at the end of the day, this is a job.”

“We don’t make policy. We just enact the policy,” the employee said. “We just do what we’re told.”

The stakes are too high to fall in line, protesters argued. Assemblymember Alex Bores, who joined the crowd sitting in the driveway but decided not to be arrested, lamented how ICE actions fracture families.

“I have a one-month-old at home,” he said. “I cannot even imagine being separated from him for a night, but if anything that just underscores how truly inhumane and horrific it is that ICE is separating parents from children.”

After leaving 26 Federal Plaza, Bores planned to head to ABC’s office building to join a protest against the network bowing to pressure from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission and pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air.