Elected officials from Brooklyn pushed for the New York City Police Department to not cooperate with federal immigration officials on Monday, after a weekend fracas at a Bushwick hospital led to several arrests.
City Council Member Sandy Nurse on X said she headed to Wyckoff Heights Medial Center at 11:00pm on Saturday after hearing a large group had gathered at the hospital after they heard an undocumented individual was detained there.
Nurse said after about five hours later, she saw police officers help ICE officials.
"What I witnessed during the discharge appeared to be direct coordination between ICE and the NYPD, with officers cordoning off the ambulance bay to allow ICE to move the individual into their vehicles and leave," Nurse wrote on X.
On Monday, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, state Senator Julia Salazar, Assemblymember Maritza Davila, Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez and Nurse called for the NYPD to respect New York’s sanctuary city laws and end any cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Speakers at the rally, which also included leaders from several area nonprofits, emphasized the fear and instability deportation actions create for families, workers, and small businesses across Brooklyn.
“New York is a sanctuary city, and that means it is illegal for the NYPD to coordinate with ICE," Reynoso said. "We have already seen this work. When we kicked ICE off Rikers Island in 2014, our city only became safer for immigrants and for all of us alike. Immigrants are the backbone of Bushwick, of this borough, and of this city, and we will stand up for them every single time. We won’t stop fighting until ICE is abolished.”
Nydia Velázquez called the weekend incident "a disgrace."
“In this neighborhood and in New York City, we fight for immigrants and we fight for immigration reform because it’s the only way we can make whole our communities," she said.
Nurse said she was grateful for the New Yorkers who showed up in Bushwick on Saturday night.
"This is our hospital and this is a immigrant community," she said. "We should not be spending money on bombs, funding genocide, and funding wars. We have needs right here in our community and ICE ain’t it.”
An ICE spokesperson told ABC News 7 that agents arrested Chidozie Wilson Okeke, a Nigerian man "with previous arrests for assault and criminal drug possession," who they say overstayed his visa. By early Sunday morning, about 200 protesters showed up and nine people were arrested, according to NBC News 4. The NYPD was responding to the crowd, not helping ICE, the station reported.
Dr. Steve Auerbach, a member of Health Justice for New York, said the group has not yet seen ICE entering hospitals just to take patients or staff, but are seeing repeated cases of ICE officials bringing detainees to hospitals after harming them, disrupting the safety, privacy and care for everyone.
"This is why hospitals must remain safe places for everyone to seek care," he said. "Healthcare facilities should clearly be ICE-free, and providers cannot be complicit in actions that endanger patients including those illegally detained by ICE."
