O Comptroller, My Comptroller 

When it comes to boring careers, accountants typically leave their competition in the dust. So it came as a cosmic shock when New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, along with 10 other Democratic legislators, went beyond his job description—and faced ICE officers in a valiant standoff.

On Thursday, eleven elected officials entered 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration office in Manhattan, where they demanded to see the 10th-floor facilities—instead, they were arrested and each was issued a Class C misdemeanor violation. They wanted to know whether DHS was complying with a ruling last month, in which a federal judge demanded the facilities be urgently improved because of a lack of hygienic products, inedible “slop,” and a “horrific stench.” (The judge intervened again on Wednesday, with a preliminary injunction that required the facility to continue fixing the poor conditions, citing a need to protect detainees from “unconstitutional and inhumane treatment.”) Unless federal prosecutors drop the charges, each official could face up to 30 days in jail.

After the arrest, Senator Jabari Brisport said the ICE thugs used zip ties and duct tape to prevent anyone from looking into the holding areas, saying that they “[laughed] about what they were doing.” Disgusting. 

Though a sanctuary city, New York has been a target flashpoint for much of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration animus, tying back to his campaign promise to deport 15-20 million people. Per ICE data, nearly 2,800 people in New York were detained by ICE in the first seven months of 2025—a sixfold jump compared to all of last year. Sen. Salazar told the New York Focus she’d felt “responsibility as an official…to escalate non-violently in response when the federal government is kidnapping [her] neighbors and trying to disappear them.”