{"id":11988,"date":"2025-10-22T14:14:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/11988\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:14:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:14:46","slug":"federal-agents-detain-mix-of-protesters-and-migrants-in-massive-manhattan-sweep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/11988\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Agents Detain Mix of Protesters and Migrants in Massive Manhattan Sweep"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 At least five federal agencies were involved in a massive immigration raid on Canal Street in Manhattan on Tuesday. The huge, heavily armored federal law enforcement presence took what observers described as a mix of migrants and protesters off the streets in what both activists and local elected officials are calling an ominous escalation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coordinated effort of having federal agents en masse in New York City should worry\u00a0 everyone,\u201d Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D) told TPM in an interview on Wednesday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multiple demonstrators who said they witnessed the raid told TPM four protesters were taken by federal law enforcement along with several people who seem to have been targeted for immigration enforcement. TPM reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not provide a total number of migrants or demonstrators who were arrested.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin provided a statement to TPM detailing the number of agencies involved in the sweep, which included the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Internal Revenue Service\u2019s Criminal Investigation division. She also confirmed at least one person who she described as a \u201crioter\u201d was arrested during the operation for \u201cassault on a federal officer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cICE and its federal partners, including FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS-CI and CBP conducted a targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation on Canal Street in New York City, focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods,\u201d McLaughlin said in an email. \u201cDuring this law enforcement operation, rioters who were shouting obscenities, became violent and obstructed law enforcement duties including blocking vehicles and assaulting law enforcement. Already one rioter has been arrested for assault on a federal officer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

McLaughlin did not provide further information on the total number of migrants or alleged \u201crioters\u201d who were detained or arrested, but said more details would be provided \u201cas soon as they become available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, who is the city\u2019s second-ranking elected official, said he believed there were \u201caround nine arrests\u201d made by federal law enforcement during the sweep. However, he said even elected officials had not been able to obtain specific information about the total number of migrants and demonstrators who were detained or the reasons for their arrests. He described this situation as alarming and \u201cauthoritarian.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we don\u2019t have much information about what happened with the federal government. \u2026 I spoke to a congressman, I spoke to [Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)], I spoke to the police commissioner, and everybody\u2019s trying to figure out what information they can get,\u201d Williams said, adding, \u201cI don\u2019t know how many people were actually detained versus let go. I heard it was a mix of vendors and just New Yorkers who were there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams described the lack of clarity as disturbing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of an authoritarian regime is this kind of obscurity and not providing information to anyone outside of the regime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gillibrand\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her efforts to obtain information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"NEW YORK, NEW YORK \u2013 OCTOBER 21: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams talks to an NYPD officer as people protest against an earlier raid by federal agents outside of 26 Federal Plaza on October 21, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Local outlets including The City<\/a> and Hell Gate<\/a> documented the raid, which featured armored vehicles and masked agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fallout continued for hours after agents swarmed lower Manhattan. TPM was on the scene as protesters subsequently gathered outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in nearby Foley Square, which is about six blocks from Canal Street. At points, Williams and other elected officials including Comptroller Brad Lander and multiple members of the City Council<\/a> joined them. The crowds stayed well into the night to provide jail support for people, preparing food and other resources to provide to those who were released. Officers with the New York City Police Department made what Williams and demonstrators who spoke to TPM described as multiple arrests during the demonstration in Foley Square. One protester provided TPM with footage showing one person being taken in cuffs. An NYPD spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tense scenes echo those that have taken place in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon where police and federal agencies have engaged in a violent crackdown against people protesting ICE and President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cmass deportation\u201d agenda. Protesters have also been detained by federal law enforcement<\/a> in these locales, and Trump has promised a heavy-handed response to resistance in cities, particularly those that are led by his political opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0In Foley Square, many demonstrators were masked and those who spoke to TPM declined to give their full names, citing fear of federal crackdowns. According to several who said they had been present on Canal Street, over a dozen migrants were detained and four demonstrators were taken by members of the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s investigations unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there were four main people and they were all detained by HSI,\u201d one woman told TPM.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A second woman piped in and agreed that it was \u201cHSI specifically\u201d that detained the protesters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so fucked. It was so fucked,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople were just doing what any normal person would do if they saw masked people taking people off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"NEW YORK, NEW YORK \u2013 OCTOBER 21: NYPD Strategic Response Group officers block protesters at the scene of an earlier raid by federal agents outside of 26 Federal Plaza on October 21, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Canal Street, one of the main thoroughfares in the Chinatown neighborhood, has long been home to a mix of licensed street vendors and unlicensed ones who sell knockoff goods. Local law enforcement regularly engages in crackdowns on the area\u2019s bootleg scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For his part, Williams said he believed there was \u201cno excuse\u201d for the level of force deployed in the sweep. He also noted it does not appear in line with Trump\u2019s insistence that dangerous criminals are the focus of his deportation push.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that you needed a military-style \u2014 it looked like a tank \u2014 and armed agents to deal with street vendors, it\u2019s not the hardened criminals we were told,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThis is about fear, and causing chaos, and harm. \u2026 It\u2019s not about public safety and it\u2019s about causing fear and chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of New York\u2019s voters and elected officials are Democrats who are opposed to Trump. While Williams said the city has \u201csome systems trying to prevent the worst,\u201d he described the chaos that unfolded on Tuesday as foreshadowing of what\u2019s to come amid Trump\u2019s promise of further crackdowns on blue cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, sadly, it is about how long we can prolong the inevitable,\u201d Williams said, adding, \u201cI think this simple-minded president is, at some point, going to flood our streets with federal agents and that should concern everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a developing story and will be updated.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 At least five federal agencies were involved in a massive immigration raid on Canal Street…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[3583,9496,153,2035,9497,2301,8073,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,4648,229],"class_list":{"0":"post-11988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-detentions","9":"tag-dhs","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-ice-raids","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-jumaane-williams","15":"tag-manhattan","16":"tag-manhattan-headlines","17":"tag-manhattan-news","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-protests","23":"tag-tricia-mclaughlin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}