Immigration Advocates, Officials Ask For Detainees to be Released From Brooklyn Federal Jail

Elected officials from Brooklyn and immigration advocates gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Sunset Park on Monday to call for an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's usage of the facility to detain immigrants. 

Last month, MDC began holding over 100 immigrant detainees—many with no criminal records—as part of an interagency agreement between ICE and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. ICE detainees are being held in the facility’s East Building, the officials said. MDC also currently houses Sean “Diddy” Combs and Luigi Mangioni.

New York Congressman Dan Goldman, State Senator Andrew Gounardes, State Assemblymember Robert Carroll, members from nonprofit group Mixteca and other advocates said ICE needs to end immigrant detention in facilities that fail to meet basic standards of safety and care.

“ICE is disappearing immigrants, many of whom have no criminal records, into a jail that a judge called ‘contemptuous of human life and dignity.’ That should appall all of us,” said Gounardes. “This isn’t about public safety—it’s a show of force meant to instill fear in our communities and keep immigrants in the shadows. It’s incredibly dangerous, disturbing and un-American. It must end now.”

MDC is notorious for dangerous and inhumane conditions that have resulted in multiple inmate deaths, including medical neglect, abuse, severe understaffing and extreme temperatures.

“The Trump administration’s decision to house nonviolent, noncriminal immigrants at the Brooklyn MDC is a cruel and self-defeating policy that punishes law-abiding immigrants while worsening conditions for every inmate,” Goldman said.

Lorena Kourousias, the executive director of Mixteca, said the immigrants in Sunset Park fled violence in their home countries to seek a better life in the U.S. 

"Many of our neighbors are now scared, afraid of going out, especially because these facilities are now hosting our people," Kourousias said, pointing to the MDC jail complex.

The federal detention program is making Brooklyn's immigrant community unsafe and placing immigrants in a detention center is not a solution, she said.

"What is broken here is not our people," she said. "What is broken is our system that provides support for one people with money and denies the support for others."