ICE enters NYC shelters armed and without judicial warrants, reports show
Federal immigration officers were able to enter private areas of New York City shelters or obtain resident information without presenting judicial warrants at least five times earlier this year, according to official incident reports written by shelter staff and obtained by Gothamist.
New York City’s sanctuary laws
Yet on two occasions, incident reports show, shelter employees allowed immigration officers to enter private areas of shelters and, in a third case, gave officers information about a former resident, all without verifying that the officers had a judicial warrant. In those cases, legal experts who reviewed the reports said staff violated the city’s sanctuary laws.
In the two remaining cases, federal immigration officers bypassed front desk staff and entered private areas of city shelters without presenting a judicial warrant or getting staff permission — actions that attorneys say could also violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The federal agents’ actions described in the reports show how the city’s sanctuary laws are being tested by federal officials, and that city employees may not consistently have followed the law.
The Department of Social Services, which runs the vast majority of the city’s shelters, said their staff never deliberately violated protocol or the law. Neha Sharma, a city Department of Social Services spokesperson, said “any rare, minor, and inadvertent lapses in protocol” were addressed by updating and distributing clearer guidance about how to respond to requests by federal immigration agents.
Sharma also said that federal officers never gained access to “protected” private client information, such as case files, application data or other legally sensitive records.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to requests for comment.
The incidents come to light shortly after the city Department of Investigation, in two separate reports, found city
The incidents described in the reports took place between January and May amid a surge in visits by federal immigration officers to city shelters. Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers visited city shelters in search of migrants at least 23 times in that period, after making no appearances at the facilities in all of 2024, according to the incident reports. The documents, obtained through a public records request, include numerous redactions, including of shelter locations and staff names.
The reports show at least one person was arrested after immigration officers entered a shelter. On Feb. 20, seven federal agents — wearing facemasks, camouflage, bulletproof vests and carrying guns — entered a Brooklyn shelter and arrested a 30-year-old resident from Venezuela, according to an incident report and the man’s attorney, Molly Lauterback. Lauterback said her client was arrested for immigration reasons, and had no criminal history.
“The extreme show of force here — seven armed agents in facemasks — was to intimidate staff so they could arrest our client in contravention of city law,” Lauterback, an immigration attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services, said in a statement.
