More than a dozen elected officials were arrested Thursday while protesting conditions at a New York City immigration holding facility where a federal judge this week extended a court order requiring the government to shape up its treatment of detainees.
The officials — including the city’s fiscal watchdog and state lawmakers — were among 77 people detained during protests at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The government building, home to immigration court, the FBI‘s New York field office and other federal offices, has become a hotbed of arrests and detention amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Eleven officials were arrested inside the building while attempting to inspect holding rooms on the 10th floor that are the subject of ongoing litigation alleging squalid conditions and overcrowding, according to a coalition of politicians, advocates and faith leaders involved in the protest. They were given summonses and released. The building was later locked down because of a telephoned bomb threat, authorities said.
Senator Mark Kelly – whose wife, Gabrielle Giffords, narrowly survived an attempted assassination while she was...
