Julie Menin, the speaker of the City Council, said a Council staff member detained by ICE was “a victim of egregious government overreach.” She was joined by Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, left, and Representative Daniel Goldman. Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times
A Venezuelan employee of the New York City Council was detained by U.S. immigration authorities on Monday, according to Julie Menin, the newly elected Council speaker, who denounced the arrest.
The staff member, a data analyst who was not publicly identified, is the first City Council employee to be detained by Trump immigration officials, Ms. Menin said during a hastily convened news conference at City Hall on Monday evening.
Ms. Menin said that the employee, who had worked for the Council for about a year, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during a routine immigration appointment on Long Island. She said that he had legal authorization to work and remain in the United States until October, although his exact immigration status was unclear as of Monday.
He did not appear to have a criminal record, said Ms. Menin, a Democrat elected to lead the City Council
last week.
“He, in fact, signed an attestation in January at the City Council that he’s never been arrested,” Ms. Menin said. “This man chose to work for the Council on behalf of the public, on behalf of New Yorkers, and despite every indication that he was doing everything the right way, he still found himself a victim of egregious government overreach.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Menin said that she spoke with the deputy director of the ICE field office in New York, who she said confirmed that the man had been arrested without providing a reason.
Ms. Menin said that the man was being held at a Lower Manhattan facility on Varick Street, the site of an immigration courthouse.
Democratic officials in New York City, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, joined Ms. Menin in denouncing the detention.
“This is an assault on our democracy, on our city and our values,” Mr. Mamdani, a Democrat and democratic socialist,
said. “I am calling for his immediate release and will continue to monitor the situation.”
The Trump administration has arrested thousands of immigrants showing up for check-ins at ICE offices and routine hearings at immigration courthouses. The tactic has been used heavily
in New York, where masked ICE agents have arrested migrants at courthouses
on a nearly daily basis, turning the courts into flash points.
ICE has cast the courthouse detentions as a safe and convenient way for its officers to arrest immigrants in a controlled environment, rather than on the street or in workplaces. Democrats and immigration activists have denounced the arrests as deceptive, cruel and a potential violation of due process.
Many of the migrants being detained were allowed into the United States by the Biden administration, under legal pathways and humanitarian programs that the Trump administration has sought to revoke.
In recent weeks, immigration lawyers said that they had noticed an uptick in the arrest of migrants showing up at ICE offices for check-ins in New York.
Immigrants summoned for check-ins are typically undocumented, have tenuous legal status or are facing deportation but have been allowed to remain in the United States at the federal government’s discretion, so long as they regularly appear at an ICE office.
“They are going after the easiest prey they can find, and that is the people who are going to court and going to their check-ins,” Representative Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, said during the City Hall news conference.
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