Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the immigration enforcement that led to a tense standoff between New Yorkers, the NYPD and federal immigration agents outside of a Brooklyn hospital Saturday night.
The mayor said the NYPD did not coordinate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the agency's civil enforcement, and that police officers responded to protests outside the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick.
Immigration authorities had arrested Chidozie Wilson Okeke, a Nigerian citizen accused of overstaying a tourist visa, and brought him to the hospital after he requested medical treatment, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“I've made very clear that our laws leave nothing, no room for interpretation about the fact that our NYPD will not participate in civil immigration enforcement,” the mayor said when asked about the incident at an unrelated press conference Monday.
Since President Donald Trump took office last year, immigration authorities have stepped up enforcement in the city and across the country, though heavy enforcement has dropped after federal authorities killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year. In New York City, city employees and agencies are banned from aiding in civil immigration enforcement in most cases because of sanctuary city laws.
The NYPD said they arrested nine people outside of the medical facility Saturday night as anti-ICE demonstrators attempted to disrupt and block immigration authorities from leaving the area with a man they had arrested.
Videos from the demonstration taken by bystanders, distributed on social media and shared with Gothamist by the New York Immigration Coalition show a chaotic scene as protesters attempted to block cars from leaving the hospital and NYPD officers cleared them from the roadway.
In one video, an NYPD officer throws a demonstrator to the ground in the street. Mamdani said the video is “incredibly disturbing” and is being investigated.
In another video taken by freelance photographer and videographer Dakota Santiago, federal officers can be seen dragging a man out of the hospital and into a vehicle.
City Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who represents the area and was present that night, said the man was the ICE detainee, Okeke.
Another video taken by a bystander and shared by the nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition shows federal officers tasing a man inside a car, and pulling him out and onto the ground earlier during the day.
The organization says the man was Okeke, and the video shows his arrest before he was taken to the hospital.
At a separate event on Monday in Bushwick, immigration advocates and local officials also condemned the action and praised the effort by New Yorkers to disrupt ICE.
“Bushwick is very, very clear: we do not want ICE in our neighborhood,” Nurse said. “And not only are we saying it, we are organized.”
Local officials, including Nurse, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and state Sen. Julia Salazar, said there have been more frequent ICE sightings in Bushwick in recent weeks. Reynoso, who hosted the event, called for ICE to be eliminated.
“We want to make sure that everyone in this entire country knows that in New York City, we want to abolish ICE,” Reynoso said.
An NYPD spokesperson said eight people were arrested and charged with resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief.
One other person was given a summons and released.
Several lawmakers at the rally demanded details from the NYPD about how and why they interacted with ICE on Saturday evening.
In an interview, Nurse said the NYPD formed a line to cordon off the hospital’s ambulance bay to allow ICE to transport their detainee away from the premises.
“If you don't want these kinds of street clashes, one, you have to be transparent,” Nurse said. “Two, you have to provide an accounting of what happened, and three, we have to understand what we can expect from you. Like, can we expect that you will be providing security for ICE or not? What’s the answer?”
Peter Markowitz, an immigration law professor and clinic co-director at Cardozo School of Law who helped draft the city’s sanctuary laws, said it was unclear if the NYPD’s actions on Saturday night, as described by Nurse, violated the city’s sanctuary laws.
In one sense, he said, the police provided support for civil immigration enforcement, which would violate the city’s sanctuary laws that prevent the use of city resources for immigration enforcement.
But he said the NYPD surely sees the situation differently, as the agency is instead doing a kind of crowd-control operation they’d perform regardless of ICE’s involvement.
“ There is some ambiguity in the law here,” he said. “ But what's clear is that it's bad policy for NYPD to be doing this.”
He added, “ To the extent there's crowd control necessary, ICE is entirely capable of doing that crowd control for themselves.”
Markowitz said NYPD’s actions on Saturday at least created the appearance of cooperation between the NYPD and ICE, which may discourage members of the public from accessing city services.
This story has been updated with new information.
