New York Officials Arrested at ICE Holding Cell Protest in Manhattan

More than a dozen New York city and state elected officials were arrested Thursday during a protest at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan after they sought to inspect Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding cells, organizers and officials said. City Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were among those detained as demonstrators attempted to gain access to the building's 10th floor and to block a garage used to transport detainees, according to protesters and a coalition of politicians, advocates and faith leaders involved in the action.

Organizers said the officials and dozens of supporters had unfurled banners, staged a sit in outside holding rooms and sat in a driveway used by ICE vans to demand compliance with a federal court order. The injunction, extended by a judge this week, requires ICE to address overcrowding and squalid conditions and to provide detainees with meals, sanitary products, bedding and access to counsel, the coalition said. Groups involved in planning the direct action included Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, Make the...