Federal agents arrested a council data analyst Monday at his immigration court appointment on Long Island.
NEW YORK — New York City Council members and Department of Homeland Security officials are offering clashing portraits of the legislative employee detained this week at an immigration court appointment.
Local lawmakers demanding the release of their colleague — a data analyst and Venezuelan national — describe him as hard-working, law-abiding and one of many immigrants caught up in the Trump administration’s dragnet. He provided legal work authorization and cleared all background checks, they said.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who disclosed that the man’s name is Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, condemned a “criminal illegal alien” with an assault arrest on his record and a tourist visa that expired in 2017.
“He had no legal right to be in the United States,” McLaughlin said.
It’s not the first time the administration has contradicted details of arrests that local, state and federal elected Democrats have tracked in their districts. But it is the first time a City Council employee has been detained.
Rubio Bohorquez’s arrest Monday at a Long Island courthouse has ratcheted up tensions in deep-blue New York City, where anti-ICE demonstrators, including Democratic elected officials, routinely protest masked federal agents’ arresting immigrants. Some City Council members were attending a Monday evening rally protesting ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole...
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