Testimony of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander Before the New York City Council: Protecting New York City from Federal Overreach, Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation

Good morning Chair Restler and Members of the Committee, and thank you for convening this important hearing on protecting New York City from federal overreach. This is an urgent moment. National Guard or federal troops have been deployed, against the wishes of state and local elected officials, to Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Washington DC, and now Charlotte, stoking fear, provoking chaos, and imposing federal power in a manner designed to undermine constitutional democracy. ICE agents are lawlessly abducting our neighbors every single day. President Trump has weaponized federal funding, using taxpayer dollars for purposes of coercion and extortion.

Now, in the wake of New Yorkers’ election of Mayor-election Zohran Mamdani, Trump and his Administration are threatening to send troops here, to further ratchet up ICE agents’ brownshirted abductions across the five boroughs, and to cut off funds to which we are legally entitled. It is a critical moment for unified action by New York’s local, state, and federal officials. It has been profoundly disappointing that Eric Adams has utterly failed to stand up for New Yorkers in the face of this federal onslaught; and let’s be clear: that’s a key reason why voters utterly rejected him at the polls. Thank you to the City Council for approaching this issue with the deadly seriousness it requires, and for convening today’s hearing. This is a moment for New Yorkers to be united in our resolve.

Federal overreach has primarily taken on three forms: (1) aggressive abduction, detention, and deportation of immigrants, without sufficient legal basis; (2) weaponizing and withdrawal of federal funds; and (3) deployment of out-of-state National Guard or federal troops without sufficient rationale and over the objection of state and local officials. New York City has already seen the first two. Now, we are preparing for the third. I will talk briefly about each, and how New York can respond.

Abduction and detention of immigrant New Yorkers, without legal basis

Nearly one in three New Yorkers is an immigrant, and over half of the City’s workforce is made up of immigrants or children of immigrants. These are not just numbers, they are home health aides, delivery workers, small-business owners, students getting their high school diplomas, and parents juggling two jobs. They are New York City.

Trump’s cruel and often lawless mass deportation agenda violates the Constitution, and the values of this immigrant city, with that copper-plated statue in the harbor. In recent months, I have spent a great deal of time in immigration court. It is impossible to sit there, day after day, watching masked ICE agents violate the centuries-old sanctuary of courthouses, separating families and abducting individuals following the rules for seeking asylum pursuant to the global convention against torture, without identifying themselves, presenting warrants, and giving any reason for the arrests, and not feel heartbroken and furious.

And we are already seeing how quickly that agenda can devastate communities. The horrific raid on Canal Street, where immigrant street vendors were swept up in a show of force meant to intimidate an entire neighborhood, is just the first example.

In court, at ICE check-ins, and now increasingly in our neighborhoods, the consequences are not abstract. They fall on real people, with real lives and families and schools and jobs. The Trump Administration has detained or deported thousands of immigrants (and some U.S. citizens), the significant majority of whom had no criminal record and presented no public safety threat.  Here are just a few of the New Yorkers we have met in recent weeks whose lives have been upended by this broken system:

• Joel, a 16-year-old junior at Gotham Collaborative High School with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, was detained at his ICE check-in despite having lawful protection. He was taken into ORR custody and held for several weeks before a judge finally ordered his release on November 17, allowing him to return to his loved ones, his community, and his favorite classes.
• I watched ICE agents seize “George” immediately after his master calendar hearing, even though the immigration judge had simply asked him to provide additional information for his asylum application and return in April 2026. Agents detained him without verifying his identity and later released him only after realizing he was not the person they were targeting. My office helped connect him with legal services so he can prepare his asylum case.
• Following his master calendar hearing, “Connor” was detained by ICE in front of his wife and three young children and transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana. Because NYFIUP contracts restrict out-of-state representation and legal providers in Louisiana are extremely limited, he was unable to secure counsel to appeal a removal order issued against him while he was detained.

These are not isolated cases. They are snapshots of a system designed to intimidate, destabilize, and deport. And it is about to get worse. Just this week, White House Border Czar Tom Homan, who is competing to be both the crudest and cruelest member of the administration, threatened to “flood the zone” and send more federal agents here.

New York City is the largest sanctuary city in the country, home to the largest population of immigrants in the country. With a new incoming Mayor, we have a real opportunity to change course.

Thanks to the Council and immigration advocates, last year’s budget saw a major increase in funding for immigration legal services, but the need remains far greater than the resources we have. These service providers, advocates, volunteers, and mutual aid groups are doing the heavy work, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to show up for immigrant New Yorkers. What is most urgent now is flexible funding that can respond to fast-changing conditions, from full representation in removal proceedings to emergency habeas petitions for New Yorkers taken to out-of-state detention centers, and to expand the capacity of our legal services providers so they can keep pace with the rising demand.

My office looked at how other sanctuary cities are responding and found promising models an incoming Mayor could replicate:

• In Los Angeles, the City coordinates rapid response efforts while trusted community groups, labor unions, and mutual aid networks lead the on the ground work, protecting sensitive data and mobilizing quickly when ICE shows up.
• In Illinois and Colorado, centralized intake systems gather key information once and route people quickly to the right help, reducing confusion and helping ensure no one falls through the cracks.
• In Colorado, nonprofits partner with a vetted network of private immigration attorneys through a shared platform, almost like a virtual law firm, which expands capacity by shifting straightforward cases to private counsel so nonprofits can focus on complex deportation defense.
• And in Chicago, the Mayor strengthened sanctuary protections through executive orders requiring clear officer identification, increasing transparency around federal enforcement, and coordinating citywide defense of residents’ rights.

New York City knows how to rise to moments like this. We should advance the bills that will strengthen our sanctuary city laws, like Council Member Hanif’s Trust Act and the New York for All Act at the State level. And we should look to the best practices in other cities to strengthen our legal service and rapid-response capacity today, along with the City–State task force I have called for to identify vulnerable funding streams, so that we are far more prepared for what is coming tomorrow.

My office is preparing a detailed memo for the incoming Mamdani Administration on how it can better coordinate with legal service providers, deploy the funding that the City Council allocated, address procurement issues to deploy these resources effectively, and provide legal protection, advice, and representation to as many of our neighbors as possible. We will of course be glad to provide it to the Council as well.

Weaponizing and withdrawal of federal funds

Just days after the election, my office released Protecting NYC, a report that assessed the risks ahead, from threats to the City’s budget, economy, and infrastructure to the rights and protections of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. It identified how federal funding cuts, immigration enforcement, infrastructure pullbacks, and civil rights rollbacks could play out in real time. Many of those risks are now coming to fruition, and still the City did next to nothing to prepare.

When we uncovered that 80 million dollars in FEMA funds, money already disbursed to New York City, had been quietly clawed back by the Trump Administration, and Mayor Adams was failing to do anything about it, we forced the Adams Administration to sue to get our money back. That case is still in court. The Law Department is working diligently to get our money back, but it is woefully understaffed.

At the same time, New York City’s funds have been clawed back or jeopardized in many other areas as well. Trump has canceled or delayed $450 million in clean energy grants, $34 in counterterrorism funding, millions is grant for afterschool and other public education programs, and $18 billion in infrastructure funding. Now, following the election of Zohran Mamdani, Trump has threatened to withhold more funds, essentially seeking to punish New Yorkers for exercise our constitutional rights to elect our own representatives.

Mayor-elect Mamdani has rightly pledged to quickly hire additional attorneys, and to work closely with New York State Attorney General Tish James and Governor Hochul on more coordinated litigation to protect New York City’s funds. This is critical. These are funds that were legally appropriated by Congress, and are due to New York City. We need a coordinated, aggressive legal approach to get them back.

Ultimately, I am optimistic that courts will order these funds be released to us. However, it may take many months or even years for those cases to work their way through the court system. That’s why a better-coordinated financial strategy is needed.

In my Tin Cup Day remarks last year, I urged the creation of a City and State task force to identify which funding streams were most at risk from federal retaliation, and to allocate additional funding to the General Reserve to make sure we have sufficient funds to avoid  sudden cuts to housing, public health, human services, or infrastructure. That work is even more urgent now.

As we approach budget season for both the State and City, I urge leaders to work together on a coordinated plan, that includes transparent identification of the funds that are at risk, coordinated legal strategy, an increase in the General Reserve, and regular updates from elected officials, in a united fashion. As we move past the shameful capitulation of the Adams Administration, I hope elected officials across levels of government will work together. Governor Hochul, Attorney General James, and Mayor-elect Mamdani can lead the way – and include legislative leaders from the State Legislature and the City Council, the State and City Comptrollers, our District Attorneys, and of course a wide array of other stakeholders as well. This is a time for united action.

National Guard and federal troop deployment

United action is what we will need as well in the face of anticipated deployment of out-of-state National Guard and federal troops. As lawyers for Portland and Chicago have argued in court, these deployments violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the President’s power to federalize the Guard, or for federal troops to engage in civilian law enforcement.

New York State and New York City are working together, first in efforts to persuade Trump not to deploy troops here (which is worth trying, of course, given Trump’s mercurial nature), but also on aggressive legal strategies to enjoin any such deployment. I am encouraged by the cooperation of Governor Hochul and Mayor-elect Mamdani in these efforts. Though they come from different wings of the Democratic Party, they are showing a commitment to work together that can serve as a model for all of us.

Maybe, somehow, despite their cruelty, ignorance, thuggish instincts, and willingness to violate the Constitution, Trump and Homan will wise up and decide not to try to deploy the National Guard or federal troops here. They got a taste of how New Yorkers will respond on Canal street, when dozens of regular New Yorkers – not people who had downloaded a resistance app or purchased whistles in advance – surrounded the agents, and made clear that New Yorkers revile ICE.

Through persuasion and some amount of acceptable flattery of his monstrous ego; through clarity that federal occupation will not ultimately succeed, and in fact will have a significant political backlash for Trump, as we saw in this month’s elections; and through a proactive and coordinated legal strategy, hopefully we can avoid the stationing of federal troops here.

Taking action together

But if Trump proceeds with the deployment, as seems likely, we will all need to work together to respond. Hands Off NYC is a coalition of over 100 community groups, labor unions, advocacy organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders, providing New Yorkers with know-you-rights training, ICE watch, how to organize and mobilize neighborhood support, nonviolent resistance, and more.

It has been heartening to see New Yorkers taking action together by the hundreds of thousands – turning out to the No Kings and Hands Off NYC marches, participating in courtwatching at 26 Federal Plaza, showing up for neighbors in grassroots ways as on Canal Street, or in more coordinated actions.

Just this weekend, I was out with Councilmembers Hanif and Aviles, as we reached out to hundreds of businesses, many of whom employ immigrants, to talk about action they can take to protect employees and neighbors. Some of the steps people can take are simple but powerful. While ICE agents are allowed to come into the parts of a store where customers are allowed, if store owners or managers simply place an “Employees Only” sign on the break room, supply room, or employee bathroom, now ICE agents would need to present a judicial warrant for entry.

We are doing this work in a spirit of patriotism, building a broad coalition, and in the spirit of nonviolent civil disobedience and bearing witness. That is the spirit in which I started attending court hearings at 26 Federal Plaza in June, as a result of which I was arrested by ICE agents in June while simply trying to accompany an asylum-seeker named Edgardo out of 26 Federal Plaza. That is the spirit in which I joined with other elected officials and New Yorkers in an effort to conduct oversight of the tenth floor at 26 Federal Plaza and to see whether ICE was complying with a federal injunction limiting detention and requiring humane conditions like clean bedding, hygiene supplies, and access to counsel. Instead of transparency, we were met with obstruction and arrest.

This week, we had our first court appearance on that arrest. While the legislators received adjournments in contemplation of dismissal, I chose to move forward with trial – because the real crime is not what we did in the elevator lobby demanding access, but what ICE is doing behind those closed doors. If ICE and DHS can question why I stood in that hallway, then I will question what they were doing on the other side of it.

In federal court this week, we participated in due process. But our immigrant neighbors have not. And we intend to use our platform to ensure the rule of law.

Finally, the actions we are discussing today are consistent with our history as New Yorkers. Next year, we will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the founding of this country. Just six weeks after the founders signed the Declaration of Independence, British troops occupied New York City, following the Battle of Brooklyn. What followed was a seven-year long occupation, characterized by martial law, harsh conditions, extensive damage to the city, and cruel detentions.

New Yorkers resisted tyranny then; and we are resisting tyranny now. Lets act together so that, when the history books are written, they reflect that Trump’s tyranny began to fail when he sought to occupy New York City, in the days after we elected Zohran Mamdani as our mayor – our first Muslim mayor, and our first immigrant mayor in generations – and New Yorkers remembered who we are, remembered what it means to wake up every day in this city with that copper-plated statue in the harbor, and relit the lamp of liberty, for the whole world to see.

New Yorkers have risen to these challenges before. We can do it again now.

Thank you again, Chair Restler, and thank you to the Council for your commitment to protecting the people who make this city home.

We didn’t take them to court on the FEMA funding. You could say we threatened to take it to court ourselves.

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