Day: September 18, 2025

Several Brooklyn lawmakers — including state Sens. Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport, Assembly members Robert Carroll, Phara Souffrant Forrest, Emily Gallagher, Marcela Mitaynes, and City Council Member Sandy Nurse — were among more than a dozen city and state officials arrested Thursday during protests against federal immigration enforcement at Manhattan’s Federal Plaza.

They were joined by City Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx, Assembly Members Jessica González-Rojas, Clare Valdez, and Steven Raga of Queens, and Tony Simone of Manhattan, as well as City Council Member Tiffany Cabán of Queens.

Eleven of the pols, including Lander, were arrested by Department of Homeland Security agents. They were sitting in a hallway with a banner reading “NYers Against ICE” on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, which houses a DHS lockup for undocumented immigrants the agency has detained after their mandatory court hearings elsewhere in the building.

After demanding access to the holding cells and being forcefully denied entry by DHS agents for about 20 minutes, the officials unfurled the banner refused to move from the hallway for roughly another 40 minutes, before getting cuffed. Specifically, the electeds were attempting to inspect if the feds were complying with a preliminary injunction ordering the them to address overcrowding, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions inside the areas.

“Immigration courts should be places of justice, but in reality, have become abduction traps,” Lander said in a statement. “Each week, I witness ICE agents become brownshirts, conducting more abductions and becoming increasingly violent as they detain our immigrant neighbors in deplorable conditions or ship them to far away places.”

“We attempted to conduct oversight of the 10th floor to ensure compliance with this preliminary injunction ruling,” González-Rojas said in a statement. “We put our bodies on the line for the lives and freedom of thousands of New Yorkers who have been illegally kidnapped and detained by ICE. Many of us, myself included, were arrested.”

Happening NOW: We’re at 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE has been ruthlessly kidnapping immigrant NYers, to demand access to the 10th floor and block ICE vans from leaving.

We refuse to stand by while ICE abducts our neighbors. Neither should our leaders. #ICEoutofNY pic.twitter.com/oPRTiNcHnI

— Emily Gallagher (@EmilyAssembly) September 18, 2025

Another group of elected officials and activists were arrested by NYPD officers outside the facility for attempting to block its driveway. That group included Cabán, Nurse, Souffant Forrest and Williams.

In a statement released by his office, the public advocate said that he and his colleagues had acted “in a nonviolent civil disobedience to demand oversight of ICE’s inhumane detention practices.”

“Even under this creeping authoritarianism regime, I expect to be released today to go home to my family, but the people we’re fighting for don’t have that privilege, as ICE disappears, and deports them,” Williams said. “Together with the dozens of New Yorkers getting arrested today, I call for all levels of government to do what they can to support our immigrant communities and vulnerable, marginalized populations.”

It is the second time Lander has been arrested at immigration court in Federal Plaza; ICE agents roughly accosted him back in June as he sought to inquire about the case of a detained immigrant.

The incident appeared to mark a major escalation in President Trump’s immigration crackdown in the five boroughs.

It comes after months of Lander and other pols showing up to immigration court to observe migrants being detained after their mandatory hearings. Elected officials have also repeatedly been barred from entering ICE’s makeshift holding cells on the 10th floor of Federal Plaza, as well as other federal lockups, since early June.

As of 5 p.m., elected officials were starting to be released from custody, according to a tweet.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork. 

These New Yorkers are fuming. More than 100 residents from a pair of Queens and Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods slammed a city-contracted asphalt recycling plant near their homes at a tense meeting Tuesday over its smelly, “burning rubber”-like emissions that they fear are making them sick. The plant, which has operated in Long Island City, Queens,…

An affordable housing lottery has opened for a recently completed eight-story development on East New York’s Fulton Street, in a section of the neighborhood that was rezoned in 2016 and has seen a wave of new development. The new building, which has a total of 51 apartments, sits on the corner of the major thoroughfare and Van Siclen Avenue on what has long been a vacant grassy lot.

Included in the lottery for 2795 Fulton Street Apartments are 13 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, all rent stabilized and income restricted and all of which could be deemed truly affordable. The units are set aside for families earning 40%, 60%, and 80%  of the Area Median Income, or between $51,018 and $160,720 a year for households of one to seven people, according to the listing.

There is a one-bedroom that rents for $1,556 a month. Eight are two-bedroom apartments going for $1,099, 1,798 and $2,497. Also included are four three-bedrooms priced at $2,015 and $2,823 a month.

Designed by Nikolai Katz Architect and developed by 2795 Fulton St LLC, the new building includes a shared laundry room and outdoor terrace, according to the listing. Units have air conditioning and energy efficient appliances. The listing says tenants have to pay for electricity, which covers the stove, heat, and hot water. Tenants are allowed one pet weighing up to 25 pounds, the listing adds.

Renderings show the development has a largely dark grey facade with light grey bands. It steps down to three stories on Van Siclen Avenue to be more in line with the height of the neighboring houses and there is also a set back at the sixth story. The ground floor commercial space has floor to ceiling glass windows along the Fulton Street facade.

Prior to the new development, the corner site was a vacant lot. A tax photo from the 1940s shows it once housed mixed-use brick buildings, but it appears to have been vacant for decades. There have been applications for a new building on the site dating back to 1992, city records show, but nothing was built. The East New York Neighborhood Plan, the major area rezoning passed in 2016, made it possible to construct a taller and bigger building on the site.

In 2011, Itzchak Zivari purchased the lot for $425,000 and in 2022 he sold it on to the current owners, whose signatories include Joel Schwartz, for $2.62 million, city records show. Yisroel Greenfeld is listed as an owner on the new-building permit, which was last renewed in May this year. A certificate of occupancy for the new building was issued in August.

Because the development takes advantage of the rezoning, it is required to include affordable units under the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. It is also expected to receive the 421-a tax break, according to the listing.

The 2795 Fulton Street Apartments lottery closes on October 6. To apply, visit the listing on New York City’s Housing Connect website.

This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner. 

“We need more support for Special Ed, more [Individualized Education Programs], and a better ratio of students to teachers.” 

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