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A New York City Council employee was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday during a routine immigration check-in on Long Island, city officials said, a move that angered newly inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The staffer, a data analyst for the Council, was detained in Bethpage, Nassau County, while attending what was described by Council Speaker Julie Menin as a scheduled immigration hearing. Menin said the employee had legal authorization to remain and work in the United States through October 2026, a claim disputed by the federal government.
“[He] had legal authorization to remain in the country until October of this year,” Menin said in a statement. “We are doing everything we can to secure his immediate release and demand swift and transparent action by the federal government.”
The Council announced the detention at an emergency news conference Monday evening. Officials said the employee contacted the Council’s human resources department after being taken into custody and that authorities initially provided no clear reason for his detention other than his presence at the appointment.
The detainee was transported to a federal immigration facility in Manhattan. The city has not released his name, citing privacy concerns, but the Associated Press and other outlets have identified him as Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, a Venezuelan national and asylum-seeker.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have not publicly released detailed information about the staffer’s immigration status. According to an Associated Press review of court filings and statements, federal authorities said he overstayed a tourist visa after entering the United States in 2017 and had a prior arrest for assault, and that he “had no legal right to be in the United States.”
City officials, meanwhile, dispute that account, claiming he cleared a personnel background check and that he complied with immigration procedures.
The detention has drawn sharp criticism from New York political leaders Democrats. Mamdani called the arrest an “assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” and demanded the employee’s release. Council members and other elected officials have also condemned the action as federal overreach.
“I am outraged to hear a New York City Council employee was detained in Nassau County by federal immigration officials at a routine immigration appointment,” Mamdani wrote on the social platform X. “This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” Mamdani continued, adding that he would “continue to monitor the situation.”
A habeas corpus petition seeking the employee’s release is pending in federal court, with a hearing scheduled for later this week, according to court documents reviewed by news outlets.
The detention of the NYC council staffer comes on the heels of activist Renee Good’s death in Minneapolis. She was shot and killed after she allegedly struck an ICE agent with her SUV. She and her spouse, Rebecca Good, had been following ICE throughout the day and were in the process of blocking ICE vehicles and antagonizing agents before the shooting, according to video circulating on social media.
Federal authorities this week have released body camera and cellphone video showing the moments leading up to the fatal shooting.
The footage, recorded from an ICE agent’s vantage point, shows Good’s Honda Pilot stopped in the middle of a residential street, appearing to block traffic.
Good is heard telling an agent, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad,” as officers approach the vehicle.
At the same time, body camera video shows Good’s wife, Rebecca Good, filming the encounter on her cellphone.
Both women appear to refuse repeated commands from federal agents to move the vehicle and leave the area.
Rebecca Good is heard taunting agents, demanding they show their faces, and saying, “You want to come at us? You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”
