Rep. Jerry Nadler talked to reporters after one of his staffers was handcuffed by DHS agents this week.Yuki Iwamura/AP
Last month, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka outside an immigration detention facility, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said on CNN that there would “likely be more arrests coming.”
DHS police came close to delivering on that threat this past week when they invaded the Manhattan offices of Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and briefly handcuffed one of his staffers.
“They’re behaving like fascists,” Nadler told the New York Times in an interview about the incident this weekend. On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), told host Dana Bash: “I think the administration is clearly trying to intimidate Democrats, in the same way that they’re trying to intimidate the country.”
After New York Rep. Jerry Nadler said DHS officials entered his office without a warrant and handcuffed one of his staffers, @RepJeffries tells @DanaBashCNN, “I think the administration is clearly trying to intimidate Democrats, in the same way that they’re trying to intimidate… pic.twitter.com/jZwUTyKNf4
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) June 1, 2025
The incident, first reported by the New York City news site Gothamist, occurred Wednesday after DHS agents accused staffers of “harboring rioters” in their offices, which is located in the same building as a federal immigration courthouse. A partial video of the incident obtained by Gothamist shows one officer handcuffing a crying woman while another Nadler staffer demands that agents provide a warrant before entering.
The confrontation comes amid news reports that ICE has been arresting undocumented immigrants as they leave courthouses around the country. According to Gothamist, ICE officers allegedly threatened to arrest two people who were monitoring their activity at the Manhattan courthouse, and a Nadler staffer invited the advocates into the congressional office. In a statement provided to Mother Jones, a senior DHS official claimed police tried to enter the office based on a belief that protesters were inside and accused the woman who was handcuffed of blocking their way, alleging she “became verbally confrontational.” The DHS official said the woman was detained “for the purpose of completing the security check” of the office and was subsequently released “without further incident.” The unnamed staffer told Gothamist that “everything resolved” and declined to comment further.
In a statement posted on X, Nadler said no arrests were made and that “the situation was quickly deescalated,” but added that he was “alarmed by the aggressive and heavy-handed tactics DHS is employing in New York City and across the country.”
“If this can happen in a Member of Congress’s office, it can happen to anyone—and it is happening,” Nadler said. Indeed, at President Donald Trump’s behest, federal officials have been detaining and seeking to deport people—including student protesters against the war in Gaza and undocumented immigrants without criminal records—without due process. Meanwhile, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), one of three Democratic representatives present at the May 9 incident at the immigration detention facility where Baraka was arrested, is facing felony assault charges for allegedly shoving and grabbing a pair of DHS agents—charges she has denied and called politically motivated.
In his statement on X, Nadler also demanded that Trump and DHS “halt the use of these dangerous tactics and…abandon use of the expedited removal process which denies due process to immigrants and citizens alike.”
Both Nadler and Jeffries lambasted Republicans for staying mostly silent as federal officials seem to openly flout the Constitution. “The Trump administration is really using totalitarian or even authoritarian practices,” Nadler told the Times. “We have to fight them. We don’t want to be a fascist country.”
