Three New York congress members, Adriano Espaillat, Nydia Velázquez, and Daniel Goldman, say masked ICE agents physically blocked them during an attempted inspection of the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn. The facility is currently holding about 100 undocumented immigrants.
According to the New York Immigration Coalition, the lawmakers were first denied entry, then trapped between a fence and the building for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Espaillat’s spokesperson told Fox News that officials “closed the gate and ran away,” leaving no way in or out for the lawmakers during that time.
The MDC, known for housing high-profile inmates like Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Luigi Mangione, has faced criticism for its recent use as a holding site for undocumented immigrants. State Senator Andrew Gounardes said many of those now detained there have no criminal records and accused ICE of using the facility to intimidate immigrant communities.
Rep. Goldman also condemned the move, saying it would overcrowd an already unsafe and understaffed prison, undoing prior improvements made to conditions there.
The Brooklyn confrontation follows similar incidents in other cities. In Newark, a federal lawmaker was arrested after clashing with agents outside a jail. In Baltimore, ICE denied entry to multiple lawmakers and senators at a processing centre, insisting it was not an actual detention site.
Immigrant rights advocates argue that these repeated denials of access are part of a broader effort to hide detention practices from public oversight, while ICE has not publicly explained why the lawmakers in Brooklyn were blocked.