The congressmen were denied entry to the building’s 10th floor, where they say immigrants detained after their court hearings—part of the federal government’s recent tactic to target undocumented people for deportation—are being held, sometimes for several nights at a time.

Congressmembers Goldman and Nadler outside 26 Federal Plaza on Wednesday. (Photo by Goldman’s office)

On Wednesday, off the heels of the earlier arrest of mayoral candidate and City Comptroller Brad Lander at 26 Federal Plaza as he attempted to escort migrants without attorneys out of court, Congressmen Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler observed court proceedings and attempted to enter the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New York Field Office at the same location. 

Despite giving notice to ICE ahead of time that they would be present, the congressmen were denied entry to the building’s 10th floor, where they say immigrants who’ve been detained after their court hearings—part of the Trump administration’s recent tactic to target undocumented people for deportation—are being forced to wait for days.

The lawmakers reiterated that the Appropriations Act of 2024 gives members of Congress the power to conduct oversight visits to facilities “operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” 

Nadler said ICE officials claimed that the 10th floor of the federal building is not technically a detention center and so not subject to that same oversight. In a video the lawmakers shared, ICE Deputy Field Director Bill Joyce tells them the location is being used for detained people who are “in transit” and set to move to another location.

But Nadler countered that people are being held there “for one or two nights or three nights,” and forced to sleep on the floor or on benches. 

“Why can’t we go in? What are they hiding? If they’re going to treat comptroller Lander, if they’re going to treat Senator Padilla, if they’re going to treat Congresswoman McIver the way that these agents have been treating them, as if it’s a police state, out in the open, in the public, how are they treating immigrants behind closed doors, who have to sleep on floors for multiple nights?” said Congressman Goldman, referring to politicians both here and in other states who have been barred from entering immigration enforcement facilities. 

Video shared by Congressman Dan Goldman’s office of the two lawmakers confronting ICE Deputy Field Director Bill Joyce over access to the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, where detained immigrants are being held.

Neither ICE or DHS’ press office returned City Limits’ request for comment on the lawmakers’ criticisms.

“It is unacceptable that they denied our access, and we will be continuing to push for access with the executives at the Department of Homeland Security because they are violating the law, and we will not stop until we get to go in and observe what is going on in these detention centers with these non-criminal, non-violent immigrants going through the process the correct way,” Goldman added. 

The congressmen also sat in for two court hearings. Goldman says the government is dismissing cases so that it can expedite people’s deportation.

“We have to streamline the asylum system so that people who have legitimate claims can get them adjudicated,” he said, after observing an asylum hearing be set for 2029. 

Goldman, who is part of the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, said he plans to ask his Republican colleagues to make a joint request to inspect the facility. 

On Friday, the lawmakers sent a letter to DHS, also signed by several other New York federal elected officials, demanding the agency grant Congress members oversight access to “any facility where people are detained by or for DHS including field offices where immigrants kept overnight.”

“Your cooperation, or lack thereof, will determine whether the Department of Homeland Security is committed to transparency and upholding the law with integrity or to secrecy and obstruction of congressional oversight,” the letter reads.

With additional reporting by Jeanmarie Evelly. To reach the reporter behind this story, contact VictoriaM@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘What Are They Hiding?’: Congressmen Seek Access to ICE Holding Area at Manhattan Federal Building appeared first on City Limits.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Game 6 of the NBA Finals had been over for only about 10 or 15 minutes, and the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder were turning the page. What happened over the previous couple of hours in Indianapolis had already been deemed irrelevant.

The only thing on their minds: Game 7.

“A privilege,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.

“A great privilege,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

A back-and-forth title matchup — Indiana led 1-0 and 2-1, Oklahoma City led 3-2 — will end on Sunday night with an ultimate game, the first winner-take-all contest in the NBA Finals since 2016. It will be Pacers at Thunder, one team getting the Larry O’Brien Trophy when it’s over, the other left to head into the offseason wondering how they let the chance slip away.

“We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they,” Thunder guard and reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The better team Sunday will win.”

History favors the home team in these moments: 15 of the previous 19 Game 7s in the NBA Finals were won by the club playing on its own court.

The Thunder played a Game 7 at home earlier in these playoffs and won by 32, blowing out Denver to reach the Western Conference finals. Indiana’s most recent Game 7 was at Madison Square Garden in last season’s Eastern Conference semifinals; the Pacers blew out New York by 21 in that game.

All-time, home teams are 112-38 in Game 7s (excluding the 2-2 record “home” teams had in the bubble in the 2020 playoffs, when everything was played in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.). But in recent years, home sweet home has been replaced by road sweet road; visiting teams have won nine of the past 14 Game 7s played since 2021.

“It’s exciting, man. It’s so, so, exciting,” Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said. “As a basketball fan, there’s nothing like a Game 7. There’s nothing like a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. So, to be here is really exciting. Really exciting for our group. What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What happened today doesn’t matter. It’s all about one game and approaching that the right way.”

The fact that Haliburton is playing at all right now is a story in itself. He looked good as new in Game 6 even with a strained right calf, something that he’s needed around-the-clock treatment on this week. The Pacers haven’t had to coax him into it; Haliburton’s own family is offering up constant reminders that he needs to be working on his leg.

“My family has been on me,” Haliburton said. “If they call me, they are like, ‘Are you doing treatment right now?’ … My family has been holding me accountable.”

There’s a lot of accountability going on among the Thunder right now, as well. A different kind, of course.

They were massive favorites going into Game 6 — +3000 odds to win the series, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. That means a $100 bet on the Thunder would have returned a whopping $103 or so if they had won the game and clinched the title. A 36-9 run by Indiana turned a one-point lead early in the second quarter into a full-fledged blowout early in the third. And with that, a Thunder team that finished with the best record in the NBA this season now has zero room for error.

Win on Sunday, and all ends well for Oklahoma City. Lose on Sunday, and they’ll go down in history as one of the best regular-season teams that failed to win a title. And Indianapolis will win its first NBA championship.

“If they had won by one, they would have probably walked out of this game with confidence,” Thunder guard Jalen Williams said of the Pacers before leaving Indy’s arena for the final time this season. “That’s what makes them a good team. That’s what makes us a good team. … They’re going to go into Game 7 confident, and so are we.”

The Thunder flew home after the game on Thursday night. The Pacers were scheduled to fly to Oklahoma City on Friday afternoon after looking at film and a final practices of the season — not much more than glorified walk-throughs — on Saturday.

And then, Game 7. For everything.

“I think we played to exhaustion,” Pacers guard T.J. McConnell said after Game 6. “But we have to do it again on Sunday.”

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By MICHAEL CASEY and REBECCA BOONE

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in transportation funds from states that don’t agree to participate in some immigration enforcement actions.

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Twenty states sued after they said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to cut off funding to states that refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. barred federal transportation officials from carrying out that threat before the lawsuit is fully resolved.

“The Court finds that the States have demonstrated they will face irreparable and continuing harm if forced to agree to Defendants’ unlawful and unconstitutional immigration conditions imposed in order to receive federal transportation grant funds,” wrote McConnell, the chief judge for the federal district of Rhode island. “The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects.”

On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts or risk losing the congressionally appropriated funds. No funding was immediately withheld, but some of the states feared the move was imminent.

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont filed the lawsuit in May, saying the new so-called “Duffy Directive” put them in an impossible position.

“The States can either attempt to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional condition that would surrender their sovereign control over their own law enforcement officers and reduce immigrants’ willingness to report crimes and participate in public health programs — or they can forfeit tens of billions of dollars of funds they rely on regularly to support the roads, highways, railways, airways, ferries, and bridges that connect their communities and homes,” the attorneys general wrote in court documents.

But acting Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom told the judge that Congress has given the Department of Transportation the legal right to set conditions for the grant money it administers to states, and that requiring compliance and cooperation with federal law enforcement is a reasonable exercise of that discretion. Allowing the federal government to withhold the funds while the lawsuit moves forward doesn’t cause any lasting harm, Bloom wrote in court documents, because that money can always be disbursed later if needed.

But requiring the federal government to release the money to uncooperative states will likely make it impossible to recoup later, if the Department of Transportation wins the case, Bloom said.

By JOSEPH WILSON

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A group of tourists were sitting at an outdoor table in the Spanish city of Barcelona, trying to enjoy their drinks, when a woman raised a cheap plastic water gun and shot an arc of water at them.

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Her weapon of choice — the cheap, squirt-squirt variety — is an increasingly common fixture at anti-tourism protests in the southern European country, where many locals fear that an overload of visitors is driving them from their cherished neighborhoods.

How did the humble water gun become a symbol of discontent?

From refreshing to revolutionary

The phenomenon started last July, when a fringe, left-wing activist group based in Barcelona that promotes the “degrowth” of the city’s successful tourism sector held its first successful rally. Some brought water guns to shoot one another and stay cool in the summer heat.

“What happened later went viral, but in reality it was just kind of a joke by a group of people who brought water guns because it was hot,” Adriana Coten, one of the organizers of Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth, told The Associated Press.

Then, some turned their water guns from each other to tourists. The images went around the world, becoming a publicity coup for the anti-tourism cause.

The guns reappeared in April when the same group stopped a tour bus in Barcelona, the Catalan capital.

Guns drawn

On Sunday, around a thousand people marched from a luxury shopping boulevard popular with affluent foreigners before police stopped them from getting closer to Barcelona’s top sight-seeing destination: La Sagrada Familia church.

The marchers spritzed unsuspecting tourists along the way, chanting slogans and carrying protest signs. One read: “One more tourist, one less resident!”

They left a trail of stickers on hotel doors, lampposts and outdoor café tables showing a squirting water gun encircled by a message in English: “Tourist Go Home!”

Still, the number of Barcelona protesters carrying water guns was a minority — and in the gun-toting group, many were only shooting in the air or at each other. One dad was toting his baby in a front-pack, water gun in hand.

Outside the protests, Barcelona locals are not toting water guns or taking aim at tourists. And many in the city still support tourism, which is a pillar of the local economy.

‘A symbol’

Can the water gun really change the minds of tourists, authorities or the businesses that drive the industry? Depends on who you ask.

Protester Lourdes Sánchez and her teenage daughter, each holding a water gun, said the gun “really isn’t to hurt anyone.”

“This is a symbol to say that we are fed up of how tourism industry is transforming our country into a theme park,” Sánchez said.

Another demonstrator, Andreu Martínez, acknowledged it was “to bother the tourists a bit.”

Laurens Schocher, a 46-year-old architect, said he didn’t shoot any suspected tourists but hoped that carrying a water gun would bring more attention to their cause.

“I don’t think the tourists will get it,” he said. “I think this is to send a message to authorities.”

A squirt can hurt your feelings

The marchers had no monster, pump-action water cannons most kids use for backyard battles in the summer. Theirs were the old-school, cheap-o water guns that send a slim jet of water not that far away.

Some tourists who were sprayed took it in stride, even claiming it was refreshing on a day with temperatures pushing up to around 87 Fahrenheit.

But there were moments of tension. When several marchers squirted workers at a large hostel, tempers flared and one worker spat at his attackers as he slammed the hostel door shut.

Nora Tsai, who had just arrived from Taiwan on a short visit, was among those spritzed on Sunday. She said she was a bit frightened and saddened. The “Tourist go home!” chants didn’t help either.

“I still like Barcelona,” she said. “I have met a lot of people who were kind.”