NYC mayoral candidate Brad Lander handcuffed by ICE

The fact these cowards are allowed to wear masks is riot-worthy.

Imagine doing your job and you need to put on a mask specifically to hide your face—and not questioning whether you’re one of the bad guys.

Not only that, but wearing masks in court!
It's the same reason Klansman wear hoods
Legislators in California are introducing bills that would make that illegal.
- It's already not legal for ICE to hide their face and ID.
  Laws are for poors, queers and browns, not for the red white and blue blooded American patriots
- Unfortunately that won't do anything. Democrats are not prepared to actually use the power they have as state officials to resist illegal federal actions. So you outlaw law enforcement from wearing masks. They keep doing it anyway. Then what?
  I see zero indication that Democrats have any intention of using force to stop ICE from violating the law. These ICE agents are already flagrantly violating the law. This arrest is flagrantly illegal. Yet are they using any of their states' out of control police budgets to provide armed police protection to state lawmakers? No. They're just letting duly elected representatives be illegally arrested.
  This is why the law you're talking about is purely performative. It's meant to generate headlines, but it won't actually move the needle.
  States need to actually start using force against federal agents that are violating the law. Will this risk escalation and civil war? Yes. But if you're not willing to risk civil war to protect the most fundamental rights of the citizens of your state, then you have no right to be a leader in a democratic country. You're too much of a coward, and you're simply not willing to fight to defend your freedoms.
Don't forget the cowardice of Democrats in general. Why are these lawmakers just going around undefended? They should be being escorted by a contingent of state police fully willing to use lethal force to protect their state's lawmakers against unlawful and illegal arrest.
If the governor of NY announced that he was sending NY state troopers to arrest Donald Trump for violating the law, do you think the Secret Service would just sit back and let that happen? States and the federal government are both sovereign. The states have just as much authority to unilaterally arrest Trump as Trump does to unilaterally arrest state leaders. Yet the state leaders are just spinelessly sitting back and letting themselves be arrested. States have out of control police budgets, but the cowards aren't even willing to use some of those immense resources to prevent duly elected representatives from being illegally arrested.
Here's a hint. If the feds come to try and arrest your governor illegally, you shoot them. You put them in the ground. I don't care if it risks a civil war. This is the kind of thing that is worth risking a civil war over.
But unfortunately these spineless Democrats are not capable of thinking like this. They're utterly unsuited for the challenge of the moment.
- Don't forget the cowardice of Democrats in general.
  The truth is, in practice, Trump would have not been any worse than Biden on Gaza, even if the war had continued. Biden is already giving full US support to Israel. There's nothing that a president can give Israel that Biden isn't already giving Israel. I suppose a president could order US troops to directly participate in the fighting, but even Trump's not that stupid.
  This you?
- Jesus Christ, you'll twist yourself in knots to make everything the Democrats' fault.

"Mayoral candidate kidnapped by group of armed, masked individuals claiming to be immigration agents."

FTFY.

Is he a immigrant? Legal or not ICE can't arrest American citizens. Its time to fucking riot time to take the nazi scum down.
- They actually can arrest anyone because they are immigration and customs enforcement. They are still law enforcement, so they can enforce any law. If you import something illegal or try to smuggle drugs into that is one agency that can investigate you. They arrest people for things like importing fake luxury items.

New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was detained Tuesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as he was escorting a defendant out of immigration court, his wife said in a statement.
“While escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE,” Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, wrote on X.

I thought someone running for political office can’t be arrested or tried for a crime in case they eventually win election (at which point all possible charges are automatically dropped)?

Close. You can't be tried at the federal level. You can be tried at the state level (specifically New York) but even if you are convicted, judges will essentially commute your sentence.
another proof that Biden was way too soft to be president

If you haven't, it's time to start arming yourself and your friends and family.

As anti-gun as I typically am, the bottom line is a decline into fascism requires as many guns as possible in as many hands as possible to end it as quickly as possible.

And it's wayyyyy beyond time for any politician or candidate with a D by their name to have some goddamn private security.
- Being a democrat is such a cuck position in life.
  Smart people hate them because they support the ruling class, dumb people hate them because they disagree on the culture war.
It's arm ourselves now or be disarmed when they mutilate the bodies of those they destroy.
None American here, but I believe the most important right you Americans have, beside the right to free speech and vote, is the right to bear arms.
Not many other countries have that.
Cant believe one day I actually say that, but the 2nd Ammendment is so important. And yes, I am also anti gun and pro gun control.
Still, the situation is getting so fucked up I think it is better to arm and protect yourselves.
- Weren't they supposed to use these guns against threats to their democracy, from within and without? I can't see any other more applicable scenario.
This is such an American response.
If conflict escalates with an armed vigilante uprising, it will be used by Trump to justify everything the military does, which will include live rounds on civilian targets. An armed militia cannot compete with the military.
The only way victory (hopefully through a mutual desire not to have a civil war) is possible is if state national guard and police remain loyal to their local governor and vow to fight against the federal government on the people's behalf. But that's still massively risky.
The best thing as always otherwise is a large scale non-violent protest. Bigger and more persistent than the No Kings protests.
- If conflict escalates with an armed vigilante uprising, it will be used by Trump to justify everything the military does, which will include live rounds on civilian targets. An armed militia cannot compete with the military.
  News flash, the peaceful, non-violent protest were already justification for Trump using the National Guard and Marines.
- Pushing it to that point is the most likely way to get the military to fracture. Which is the only realistic way to win this by force. Not saying force is the only way, but if it is the way, you need to force a split.

Idea why arrested?

escorting a defendant out of immigration court
That's all it takes now.
- That and being a Democrat
By their definition, defending a migrant, housing them, transporting them, waving/smiling at them, is tantamount to criminal conspiracy. Interestingly you don't see the .eat packing ceos hauled away for hiding them right up until they unionize. This is just the beginning of the violence the fed is going to impose on anyone who dares to stand up to the gestapo in any form.
Sounds like it was because he was attempted to keep ICE from arresting an immigrant.
- Sounds like it was because he was attempted to keep ICE from ~~arresting~~ kidnapping an immigrant.
  Arrests come with warrants and due process
For doing his job to protect people in his community. Won’t catch cuomo doing the right thing out there
- Cuomo's community is the real estate developers, he will only protect them.
- You absolutely would catch Cuomo doing something similar: escorting a defendant out of immigration court...
  and feeding them to ICE...
  "yep, this one right here boys!"
Because in New York City, a global megalopolis with one of the largest and most well-funded police departments in the country...can't be arsed to provide police protection to its highest ranking elected officials.
Imagine if the NYPD tried to arrest Trump. Do you think the Secret Service would just let that happen? Yet state and local Democratic officials aren't willing to actually use their legal power to protect themselves from unlawful arrest. These leaders should be under constant state or local police protection. But they're so addicted to normalcy that they simply cannot bring themselves to take reasonable but unusual steps like this. They just can't mentally handle it, so they let themselves go unprotected.
It should not be possible to arrest the Comptroller of the largest city in the country without first having to go through a whole bunch of local police officers.
But Democrats are cowards, so they let themselves be lead to the showers.

They wear masks because their family would be embarrassed by this Nazi shit. Fucking disgraceful cowards.

They wear masks because otherwise they would be rightfully hunted down and shot
- I doubt they would be in much danger. Maybe get an angry letter or egging of their houses.
Someone shared this link the other day. Let me pass it along!
https://icelist.info/

There was a rally to support Lander this afternoon. Pretty good turnout for a sudden gathering on a Tuesday.

He gave a short talk after he was released.

What I’m learning is that if I want to abduct someone I just need to wear a convincing enough ICE uniform and nobody will stop me.

It's already been reported on multiple times, and that's just the ones we know about. Also, I don't think it's a "uniform" so much as just whatever tacticool mall ninja gear they decided to put on that morning.
This won't end until ICE agents start being disappeared by people dressed up as ICE agents.
- To defeat the ICE we must become the ICE
Weird Flex bro, you do you.

How long must we keep up this charade of law and order if Trump pick and chooses which laws he will follow.

Arresting leaders because they asked to see a warrant. ICE is being used as Trump’s personal Gestapo to haunt down anyone who doesn’t fit Trump’s vision of a white ethnostate.

It should be seen as acceptable to shoot ICE thugs that trespass, assault, and/or try to kidnap innocent people.
Jurors are going to have to take on the role of judges to combat how corrupt our system is.

The fact that no one has yet arrested Trump shows what a farce the US legal system is – it has absolutely nothing to do with justice or fairness, but rather facilitates organized crime on a massive scale.

The fact that no one has yet arrested Trump shows what a farce the US legal system is
Relevant, from 2017. (And every word could have been written in 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1yRNI0g5zM
If there's anything I've learned over the last decade it's that the U.S. justice system is the butt of a joke. And you better believe all the criminals out there, from the petty thieves to the politicians, have taken note of that fact.
Crime will rise.
- It's particularly sad, because countries like Brazil and South Korea both held their demagogues liable for staging their coups. Instead, we re-elect ours.
  Really shows how stupid the average American is, but I don't just blame republicans. Democrats were happy to do everything they can to ensure we fight a culture war instead of a class war. Liberals banning everyone they disagree with from online discussions only served to accelerate the schism. It pushed indoctrinated people even further down their rabbit holes and created an internet that mirrors the city-rural divide.
- Yes, even I, as a European, have the impression that the US system has become so infiltrated by criminals that it has itself become a significant part of the problem. I mean, it couldn't be any more obvious when even a constitutional judge like Clarence Thomas no longer has to be ashamed of his open corruption – and that's been the case for decades, if we're being honest.
  I would say that this corrupt system is what makes organized crime possible in the first place. This system is broken beyond repair because it not only fails to fulfill its function, but actually achieves the opposite - so imo: it cannot be repaired from within.
  Specifically, with a functioning legal system, an obvious criminal like Trump would never have become president, because he would have been in prison for decades. Instead, he is now president and is exploiting the legal system for his crimes.

So, what was he arrested for? Attending an open court immigration hearing?

“Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413 percent increase in assaults against them,”

In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, the parent agency of ICE, said that Mr. Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.”

“Our heroic ICE law enforcement officers face a 413 percent increase in assaults against them,” she added. “It is wrong that politicians seeking higher office undermine law enforcement safety to get a viral moment. No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences.”

New York Times - Brad Lander Is Arrested by ICE Agents at Immigration Courthouse

Jesus. Mental gymnastics of the right.

Any candidate Republicans don't like will just go missing.

Hopefully, said republicans will as well.

Mmh.. that´s a nice fascist state you have here.

You think it's nice?!???

This is awful. Now the Democrats will have to set up internal meetings over the next few weeks to figure out the most appropriate language to condemn this, after which they will forget this happened.

The silence and inaction of the Democratic leadership since Trump took office is a major contributor to the Republicans and the police state to keep escalating project 2025 agenda without impunity.

The ICE agents in NYC are afraid of COVID...The RSHA and NKVD agents did not wear masks, but these chicken shits do.

Cops protect you from shitty politicians before they are even elected

Impressive efficiency

Whats shitty about the guy? Because knowing nothing else, getting arrested for demanding ICE show a warrant immediately gets my vote.
- I'm like 99.9% positive this user is a troll.
  The only comments I've seen of them so far were "I'd never let this (dog) meat go to waste!" In response to the Minnesota assassination involving a dog, and another post about cats "they're great deep fried"
So that's what it looks like when Gemini hallucinates!