From 9/11 to 26 Federal Plaza: How Fear Became Policy
Immigration enforcement in the U.S. was built on fear. Now it arrests elected officials for asking questions.
On September 18, 2025, eleven elected officials were arrested inside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. Among them were Comptroller Brad Lander, State Senators Jabari Brisport and Julia Salazar, Assembly Members Jessica González-Rojas and Marcela Mitaynes, and Council Members, including Tiffany Cabán. They had come not to protest in the traditional sense, but to fulfill a duty: to see for themselves the conditions inside a federal immigration holding facility — specifically, the 10th-floor ICE intake rooms.
What they found instead were locked doors, zip ties over handles, and duct tape over windows. ICE denied them access. The lawmakers refused to leave. They sat in. And for that — as elected officials on official business — they were zip-tied, arrested, and charged with obstruction.
What they demanded was transparency. What they received was a wall.
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The Infrastructure of Fear
Twenty-four years ago, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government radically restructured its federal apparatus. One result was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, which absorbed 22 agencies and gave birth to a new one: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
ICE was designed not to support migrants or regulate borders with compassion. It was designed for enforcement — for raids, detention, and removal. Its DNA is not one of immigration support, but rather a national security posture — fear-based, militarized, and unaccountable.
The ICE holding rooms at 26 Federal Plaza have already been subject to legal scrutiny. A preliminary federal injunction earlier this year cited conditions inside the 10th floor as "unsanitary" and "unsafe," noting detainees were sleeping on concrete, denied hygiene products, and overcrowded in rooms far beyond capacity.
That was the context for this visit. The elected officials came not with bullhorns, but with legal precedent. And still, ICE shut them out.
Immigration Isn’t New. Demonization Is
The U.S. is a nation built by immigrants. Unless you are Indigenous, your ancestors crossed oceans or borders to be here. Migration is not an aberration. It is the foundation.
But after 9/11, immigration stopped being seen as an economic issue or a human story. It became a national security threat. The “immigrant” became a symbol, not of labor or resilience, but of danger. That shift enabled a new era of xenophobic policy, detention quotas, and border militarization.
After 9/11, our government built an entire security apparatus, not to track the ultra-wealthy financiers of terrorism, but to detain the day laborer, not to screen the prince, but to deport the porter.
Our biggest attack on U.S. soil wasn’t carried out by gardeners or cooks. It wasn’t migrants or refugees. It was orchestrated by the privileged sons of oil-rich kingdoms, the very class we still sell weapons to.
But the poor, the undocumented, and the visible outsider became the enemy. Why? Because they were easier to control and to blame.
We’ve scapegoated immigrants before. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first major federal law to ban immigration by race. But what we see today is even more systematic, a sprawling network of federal contractors, surveillance tech, and legislative cruelty that profits from detention and division.
Who Gets to Belong and Who Gets Blamed
There’s a brutal calculus in American politics: the wealthy immigrant is welcomed, even celebrated. The poor immigrant is criminalized. However, this isn’t unique to immigration. It mirrors what happens to poor Americans every day.
As Council Member Tiffany Cabán put it after her arrest:
“As an elected official, it is my duty to protect my constituents from cruelty and violence. ICE is cruel and violent. ICE puts New Yorkers and our democracy in danger.”
That cruelty isn’t abstract. It’s economic.
In 2023, the federal poverty threshold for a single adult was about $15,000 a year. That’s not a livable wage. At best, it’s a statistical fantasy. There is no part of this country, whether urban or rural, where $ 15,000 a year covers rent, groceries, transportation, and medical care. And yet that number defines who is officially “poor.”
According to the U.S. Census, about 11.1% of the country — over 36 million people — fall below that line. However, those numbers only count people who fall beneath an already absurd standard. They don’t account for the true cost of survival.
That’s why we talk about ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. These are workers — often full-time — who earn too much to qualify for help, but too little to live with stability. In some states, ALICE households make up over 40% of the population. They aren’t outliers. They are the American norm.
Immigrants and the Working Poor: Same Struggle, Different Labels
The poverty rate among immigrants is significantly higher than among U.S.-born citizens. Immigrants make up 14% of the population, but over 24% of those in poverty. And when they face deportation, fewer than 4 in 10 have legal representation, not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it.
But citizens aren’t faring much better. Legal defense, housing, and food are all inaccessible for the working poor, regardless of where they were born.
Poor immigrants and poor Americans are not enemies. They are mirrors, both struggling under a system that rewards wealth, punishes need, and sells division as distraction.
Poor immigrant or poor citizen, both live under a system where access, justice, and dignity often depend on resources neither has.
Both are used, exploited, ignored, and both are blamed by systems that shift the focus to newcomers or strangers rather than the structures that profit from division.
What the Powerful Really Fear
The arrest of elected officials at a federal facility didn’t happen because they posed a threat. It happened because they asked to see something they weren’t supposed to see.
ICE didn’t want them to document empty hygiene shelves, bodies on concrete floors, or the condition of detainees in federal custody. Transparency is a threat, not to security, but to impunity.
The people profiting from this system — politically or financially — don’t fear migrants. They fear solidarity. They fear the moment when the warehouse worker and the day laborer realize they’re both being squeezed. When the citizen on food stamps and the undocumented mother see each other as equals, not competitors.
There are people in this country who make more in an hour than some full-time workers make in a year. It’s not because they work harder. It’s because the system works for them and not for the rest of us.
The Real Border
It’s not just about who gets to stay. It’s about who gets seen. The true border in America isn’t geographic. It’s economic, and it runs between the powerful and everyone else.
The arrests at 26 Federal Plaza weren’t just a protest. They were a glimpse into how deeply power fears accountability, and how urgently we need solidarity across every line they try to draw between us.
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Sources:
“New York Democratic politicians arrested at ICE jail in Manhattan”, Reuters
“New York lawmakers arrested for blocking Ice access to federal building”, The Guardian
“Democratic elected officials arrested at ICE facility in New York City”, The Washington Post
“Elected officials arrested as anti‑ICE protests escalate at 26 Federal Plaza”, Politico
“Elected officials among dozens of protesters arrested at a Manhattan immigration holding facility”, AP News
“These Are the 15 New York Officials ICE and NYPD Arrested in Manhattan”, WIRED
“Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)”, National Archives
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The only thing transparent about this admin is that they are hiding an awful lot.
And Laura Ingraham on viewing this shamefully ICE thrug performance stated they should do more... OMG, What happens when legal rules don't apply then ICE turns around and charge elected officials with obstruction. Our votes don't matter any more. We have media propaganda stating this is normal and should more severe. I ask why are we funding this?