June 1, 2025
Federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security handcuffed and briefly detained a staff member in New York Rep. Jerry Nadler’s Manhattan district office on Wednesday, according to a statement released by the congressman.
Video taken by a person inside Nadler’s office shows one of his aides being handcuffed by an agent with the Federal Protective Service while another agent tries to access an area inside the office.
In the footage, a second staffer stands in front of the agent and asks if he has a warrant. “You’re harboring rioters in the office,” the federal agent is heard telling her, before walking in. In the background, the handcuffed aide is heard crying while someone tries to comfort her.
The agents allegedly entered Nadler’s office because they were told protesters were present and the agents “were concerned about the safety” of employees in the office, the Department of Homeland Security told [news source] in a statement on Saturday.
Activists on Wednesday were protesting outside of Varick Immigration Court — located on a different floor of the same building as Nadler’s office — in opposition to the detention of migrants at the courthouse by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Upon the officers’ arrival, they identified themselves and said they were conducting a security check when “one individual became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office,” the statement said.
“The officers then detained the individual in the hallway for the purpose of completing the security check. All were released without further incident,” DHS said.
Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s chief of staff, told [news source] on Sunday the Department of Homeland Security’s version of events was a “total fabrication.”
The incident occurred as the Trump administration has taken extraordinary measures to crack down on immigration, aggressively pressuring Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick up the pace of migrant arrests and touting mass deportation plans.
Nadler called the incident “deeply troubling” in a Saturday statement and confirmed Department of Homeland Security officers “forcefully” entered his office and handcuffed the staff member.
“President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are sowing chaos in our communities, using intimidation tactics against both citizens and non-citizens in a reckless and dangerous manner,” he said.
“If this can happen in a Member of Congress’s office, it can happen to anyone – and it is happening,” Nadler said.
Gottheim said the agents appeared “upset” because members of Nadler’s staff witnessed the officers detaining migrants inside the building, and because staffers had invited advocates who saw the detentions to the congressman’s office.
Court watchers, advocates and some members of Nadler’s staff had gathered on the fifth floor, which houses the immigration court, to observe court activity following reports that immigration officers were detaining migrants after their immigration appointments.
Staff members noticed ICE officers were in the lobby holding sheets of paper with pictures of asylum seekers who were coming in for their hearings, Gottheim said.
“Really what happened is we have these ICE officers who are working with Federal Protective Services, upset that we are watching them, seeing what they’re doing, and that we invited these other people who were observing back to our office,” Gottheim told [news source].
Officers ignored staffers’ requests to see a warrant, he added.
“They push their way into the office, even though my staff doesn’t want them in,” Gottheim said. “They had no right to be in the office, and there’s no exigent circumstances of why they would have come: We didn’t call them for assistance, there was no riot, there was no protest going on in the office.”
Nadler was not in the office at the time of the incident but arrived shortly after his staff called him to alert him to what was unfolding.
The aide was still detained when he arrived, according to Gottheim, but Nadler spoke with the officers and helped defuse the situation so that the staffer could be released.
Found on mainstream news.
