Lander, Goldman refer ICE agent for federal prosecution over courtroom shove of Ecuadorian woman

New York elected officials are demanding accountability after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) supervisor was filmed shoving a woman to the ground inside 26 Federal Plaza, an incident that has sparked calls for federal prosecution and renewed criticism of immigration enforcement in the city.

The ICE agent, who has been overseeing detentions inside the immigration court for months as immigrants attend their legally mandated court hearings, was relieved of his duties over Wednesday’s incident with Monica Moreta-Galarza, an immigrant from Ecuador, who was pleading with the officer to release her husband from custody.

On Friday, Congressman Dan Goldman and City Comptroller Brad Lander formally referred the officer to the U.S. Department of Justice, urging Attorney General Pamela Bondi to pursue felony charges.

According to their letter, the officer “violently and unnecessarily” threw Moreta-Galarza to the floor in front of her two young children shortly after her husband was detained following a court appearance related to his asylum application. Moreta-Galarza hit the back of her head and required hospital treatment, according to the politicians.

“This flagrantly egregious conduct by this ICE officer is in apparent violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242,” Goldman and Lander wrote. “In this case, the officer, acting under the color of law, willfully used excessive physical force by throwing a young mother to the ground and thereby deprived the victim of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The letter cited prior prosecutions of federal officers for excessive force, including a 2022 conviction of a Customs and Border Protection officer in California. “If, as you are fond of saying, ‘no one is above the law,’ then certainly this incident deserves prosecution under the very precedent set by you as Attorney General,” the lawmakers wrote to Bondi.

“We respectfully request that you immediately investigate this incident in a timely manner and enforce the laws prohibiting this gross misconduct to the fullest extent. Every person in this country must be assured that federal officers are not above the law, and that if they engage in abuses of power, they will be held accountable for their actions,” they concluded.

‘Everyone should be held to the same law’

The referral preceded a press conference in Queens, where Lander and state officials condemned both the assault and the broader pattern of ICE courthouse arrests.

Lander, standing alongside Assemblymembers Tony Simone and Jessica González-Rojas and Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, said the push should not go unpunished. He said the violence at Federal Plaza is part of a climate of fear in which immigrants complying with legal proceedings are met with force.

“This is the city that welcomes people from around the world, the most remarkable immigrant city,” Lander said, pointing to New York’s history as a refuge symbolized by the Statue of Liberty.

“And so when we show up at 26 Federal Plaza, when we support immigrant rights groups in our neighborhood, when we demand and pass and defend and implement sanctuary city laws, we are doing it because that’s what it means to be New Yorkers.”

González-Rojas described Queens as “the world’s borough,” emphasizing how immigrants are central to the borough’s communities and economy, but many are now “fearful of living their lives.”

Simone, recalling his own family’s immigrant story, condemned the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown as “un-American.” He called out other mayor candidates, Mayor Adams and former governor Andrew Cuomo, whom he said he was “ashamed of” for staying quiet.

“We must stand together. I call out my Republican colleagues, my Democratic colleagues, who are chicken on this issue: rise up,” he said. “We can talk about affordability and protecting our fellow New Yorkers who thrive in our economy. Our economy will suffer without them.”

Mamdani welcomed the news that the officer had been relieved of his duties, but said Wednesday’s incident was not what shocked him the most. He said it was the fact that “we knew that that act is taking place every day across this country, oftentimes unseen, unnoticed, and unabashed in its cruelty.”

He told reporters the ICE officer was only relieved of duty after video of the assault spread widely.

“It was only because of the response to this act that the officer has been relieved,” Mamdani said. “And it’s only from the responses from those who have been standing on the front lines of this fight, and so many Americans across the country, that we will finally hold this administration accountable for the ways in which they have torn apart the very fabric of this country.”

When asked if the ICE supervisor should be charged with a crime, Mamdani said: “I think that if the ICE agent has violated a law, and is found to have done so, then, yes, they should be charged.”

“Everyone should be held to the same law. We can not have a separate system, especially for those who are seeking to enforce them,” he added.

Mamdani pledged that, if elected mayor, he would uphold sanctuary city laws and expand legal representation for immigrants facing deportation, including hiring 200 lawyers so that the law department can return to pre-pandemic levels – “in stark contrast to Andrew Cuomo.”

In response to the criticism of the former Governor at Friday’s press conference, Cuomo’s campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said, “Unlike Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo has not just forcefully condemned the misuse of ICE for years, but took action, signing the executive orders restricting New York’s cooperation with them on non-criminal matters, successfully guarded NY’s drivers license database from them and has continuously called out their abuses on the campaign trail.”

“But if fraudster Mamdani is in a talkative mood, he should answer direct questions about his campaign promise to decriminalize prostitution, his refusal to apologize for calling the NYPD racist as promised and his vow to ‘seize the means of production,’ i.e. abolishing private property.” he added.

Reps for Adams did not immediately return requests for comment.

Goldman, though not at the rally, said Moreta-Galarza and her children fled to his district office across the street from Federal Plaza immediately after the incident, where they recounted what had happened before Moreta-Galarza was taken to the hospital.

Goldman called on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to take “appropriate disciplinary action and implement measures to prevent this from happening again.”

Lander said his office is now working to connect the family with legal assistance.

“ICE’s courthouse arrest policy has turned 26 Federal Plaza into a violent and dangerous place,” Lander said in the referral announcement with Goldman. “Shoving a bereft woman to the ground, causing injuries, is a criminal act and should be investigated as such. We demand accountability for this egregious violence and an end to this lawless policy.”

amNewYork previously reported that now-removed ICE supervisor had been accused of using force against court attendees. Last month, he pulled a teenage girl from her father’s arms and restrained her as she cried. Several court observers had also complained for months about his physical behavior.

The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

– With additional reporting from Dean Moses