Overview
- City officials say the staffer was taken into custody during a routine immigration check-in in Bethpage and transferred to the Varick Street detention center in Manhattan after using his one phone call to contact City Council HR.
- Homeland Security identified the detainee as 53-year-old Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez and asserted he overstayed a 2017 tourist visa, lacked work authorization and had a prior assault arrest, which Council leaders contest.
- Speaker Julie Menin, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Dan Goldman, Attorney General Letitia James and Gov. Kathy Hochul called for his immediate release, and Council staff planned protests.
- Legal advocates are preparing challenges, and a habeas hearing is set for Friday before Judge John Cronan, with authorities barred from moving the detainee out of New York until then.
- Menin said this is the first detention of a Council staffer and reported an inability to reach the Bethpage ICE office through its published number, raising concerns about access and transparency.