“They are not coming for just criminals. They’re coming for all of us, all of us!” Bronx Metropolis Council Member Pierina Sanchez stated Tuesday. “We will not stand for it. ICE, get the f*ck out of this city!”
Photograph by Dean Moses
Members of the Metropolis Council pulled no punches on Tuesday in reacting to ICE’s detainment of a Metropolis Council staffer throughout what was alleged to be a routine listening to on Lengthy Island Monday.
The staffer, 53-year-old Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, was detained by ICE throughout an immigration listening to in Bethpage. Metropolis Council Speaker Julie Menin introduced Bohorquez’s detention at an emergency press convention Monday evening; the New York Authorized Help Group has since filed authorized paperwork to maintain the Metropolis Council employee detained by ICE within the state.
Menin and U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman stated in a press release Tuesday that Bohorquez is being held in New York state; a habeas petition filed in federal court docket will stop his elimination from New York, pending a court docket decision.
Bohorquez, a knowledge analyst with the council, had a clear prison file, Speaker Menin stated Monday evening. Nonetheless, federal Division of Homeland Safety Tricia McLaughlin, in a New York Instances report, claimed that the staffer had a earlier arrest for an assault and had overstayed his visa again in 2017. He did have work authorization.
Regardless of McLaughlin’s claims, Bohorquez “cleared the standard background check conducted for all applicants,” Menin and Goldman stated Tuesday. The Congress member additionally slammed McLaughlin’s claims as lies, noting that Bohorquez had “Temporary Protected Status (TPS) because of the brutal Maduro regime and then obtained work authorization pursuant to that status.”
“Department of Homeland Security spokesperson ‘Tricia from Ohio,’ is back to doing what she does best: gaslighting the American people,” Goldman stated. “Her statement that the staffer ‘had no legal right to be in the United States’ is a bald-faced lie. In truth, the NYC Council employee was lawfully in the United States and properly authorized to work here.”
The Council states that they’ve nonetheless been unable to contact Rubio Bohorquez’s lawyer.
The New York Authorized Help Group says it filed authorized paperwork to maintain the Metropolis Council employee detained by ICE within the state, as native elected officers lined as much as help the town staffer.Photograph by Dean Moses 
The New York Authorized Help Group says it filed authorized paperwork to maintain the Metropolis Council employee detained by ICE within the state, as native elected officers lined as much as help the town staffer.Photograph by Dean Moses 
The New York Authorized Help Group says it filed authorized paperwork to maintain the Metropolis Council employee detained by ICE within the state, as native elected officers lined as much as help the town staffer.Photograph by Dean Moses
In the meantime, on Jan. 13, his colleagues and elected officers rallied outdoors of the Decrease Manhattan detention middle, the place it was initially believed he was being held.
Manhattan Metropolis Council Member Harvey Epstein summed up the arrest in a single phrase: “Outrageous.”
“This is outrageous that the federal government is doing this. Outrageous,” Council Member Harvey Epstein stated. “It is an outrageous abuse of power, and we have to call shame on the federal government and the federal administration, who is doing this to regular New Yorkers. And the council is going to fight as hard as they can, along with the staff, to make sure that this doesn’t continue to happen.”
Others, like Bronx Council Member Pierina Sanchez, grew to become emotional, with tears welling in her eyes and fury spilling from her lips. She vehemently denounced the detainment.
“They are not coming for just criminals. They’re coming for all of us, all of us!” Sanchez roared. “We will not stand for it. ICE, get the f*ck out of this city!”
Rubio Bohorquez has labored as a analysis analyst for a couple of yr, and, as soon as detained, used his solely cellphone name to achieve out to the Metropolis Council’s human assets division.
The arrest additionally drew the ire of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” Mamdani stated in a Monday assertion. “I am calling for his immediate release and will continue to monitor the situation.”
