ICE arrests in Brooklyn highlight tensions over New York’s sanctuary policies

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani steps up his criticism of ICE, federal agents are continuing to make arrests on city streets. The agency’s top enforcement official in New York says many of those operations could be avoided if local authorities cooperated with federal officials rather than following sanctuary policies.

During a ride-along before dawn on Thursday, agents spent hours tracking two men before moving in. One arrest took only seconds. The other became a struggle lasting several minutes.

Ken Genalo, who leads ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York City, accused Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the City Council of allowing people he described as dangerous offenders to remain in the community. He said sanctuary policies mean agents must find suspects themselves, rather than take custody of them at local jails.

“All of this is about politics. It is not about public safety,” Genalo said while his team watched for a Georgian national charged with sexual abuse. The charge is pending.

Genalo also criticized city leaders for what he said was a failure to recognize victims of crimes committed by people in the country illegally. The operation came days after Mamdani posted a Spanish-language video advising New Yorkers how to respond to ICE. Tensions had risen following a separate shooting involving a Dominican migrant who authorities say tried to strike officers with a vehicle. The Department of Homeland Security said the man had a record that included theft, robbery, assault, drug and weapons offenses.

The Brooklyn arrests were part of a broader enforcement effort. ICE said it arrested nearly 2,200 people in a statewide crackdown in August known as Operation Rotten Apple. But Thursday’s operation also showed the slower work behind those numbers: surveillance, planning and long waits, followed by arrests that can unfold quickly and sometimes become volatile.

More than a dozen armed agents gathered at an undisclosed Brooklyn location before sunrise. During a briefing, commanders discussed several people they planned to arrest and possible risks, including whether a target might be armed or have boxing experience. Agents checked their equipment, attached body cameras and set out at about 5:50 a.m.

Genalo drove an unmarked SUV, listening to radio updates and describing how officers studied suspects’ routines to identify a time and place for an arrest. He called this process establishing a “pattern of life.”

The first target was Nika Tkeshelashvili, 40, whom ICE identified as a Georgian national. The agency said he crossed the southern border illegally in January 2023 and was arrested in September on a first-degree sexual abuse charge. His case is still pending. His next immigration court hearing was scheduled for October 2028, a wait Genalo said he found difficult to understand.

Agents believed Tkeshelashvili usually came outside between 7 and 7:30 a.m. to move his car and avoid a parking ticket. Unmarked vehicles took positions on nearby streets while Genalo and the reporting crew waited about half a block from his apartment building.

At first, the target did not appear. As daylight spread, commuters and schoolchildren filled the streets and traffic increased. Genalo said the darkness helped officers keep an operation discreet, while a busier neighborhood made that harder. Even weeks of surveillance, he noted, could not guarantee the person would come out; agents might have to try again another day.

At 7:57 a.m., an agent reported over the radio that the target had stepped outside with a cigarette and was heading toward his car. Another agent described his clothing: a black vest, red shirt and red hat. The team moved in, and Genalo drove toward the scene.

By the time the SUV arrived, officers had handcuffed Tkeshelashvili and were putting him into a waiting vehicle. He appeared calm and said little. Genalo called the arrest “textbook” and “flawless,” crediting the team’s timing, intelligence and element of surprise.

Earlier, Genalo said, another ICE team had been disrupted by people blowing whistles, shouting and warning residents that federal agents were nearby. That team was seeking an Ecuadorian migrant who, according to Genalo, faced sexual misconduct charges involving a child. “Why would you protest that we’re trying to arrest this individual?” he said.

The next target was Yves Frantz Augustine, 45, a Haitian national. ICE said Augustine entered the country legally in 1997 but overstayed his visa and was ordered deported in 2006. The agency said his record included an assault conviction, for which he served seven years in prison, as well as weapons offenses and a case involving a terroristic threat.

Genalo said an effort to deport Augustine in 2011 failed because Haiti did not provide the required travel documents. He also said New York authorities had declined three ICE requests to hold Augustine for federal custody after later arrests.

Agents had another concern: Augustine was taking a child to school. Genalo said they would wait until the child had been dropped off, explaining that ICE policy is to avoid arrests near schools or in front of children. Officers followed Augustine on foot and in vehicles as the morning traffic built.

Genalo parked near a curb and said Augustine was expected to walk toward the SUV. At about 8:26 a.m., agents received the signal to move. They surrounded Augustine near the vehicle and tried to handcuff him.

“Don’t move! Police! Let me see your hands!” one officer shouted, drawing a weapon. Another said officers had a warrant. Augustine did not put his hands behind his back, and agents pressed him against the metal shutters of a closed storefront as they tried to restrain him.

“No, no, no, no,” Augustine shouted. An officer told him not to fight, while another asked him to put his hands behind his back and tried to calm him.

As officers led him away in handcuffs, Augustine’s jacket slipped and exposed the words “it’s all a trap” on the back of his shirt. The front read “NOCOMP.” He pulled against the agents as they moved him toward an SUV, calling out about his children and saying, “Think about my kids.”

Augustine questioned why he was being arrested and asked to call his wife. He also said he was a U.S. citizen. An officer showed him the warrant and gave him time to read it before placing him in the vehicle. Genalo disputed the citizenship claim, pointing to the 2006 deportation order.

The arrest took about four minutes, substantially longer than the first. Back in the SUV, Genalo said Augustine’s resistance required officers to use additional restraint techniques. He said detainees are generally taken to a secure location before being transferred to an ICE processing facility.

“We want to get in, make the arrest, and get out as fast as possible,” Genalo said, arguing that the speed of arrests was a safety measure. He rejected claims that ICE abducts or disappears people. “We don’t kidnap people, we don’t disappear people. We arrest people,” he said.

Genalo framed the arrests as part of a wider dispute over public safety and cooperation between local and federal authorities. He said both men had previously been in local custody and that officials had ignored ICE requests to transfer them. He argued the refusals waste public money and put officers, suspects and residents at risk.

During the first stakeout, agents briefly worried that their presence had been noticed when an NYPD patrol car appeared. Genalo speculated that a resident may have called police, but the concern passed. The encounter, he said, underscored the complications of carrying out operations without consistent local cooperation.

He blamed Mamdani, Hochul and the City Council for putting politics ahead of public safety. “They’re criminals that committed heinous crimes. And they should not be in the community,” he said of people ICE has arrested.

Genalo, a Brooklyn native and 34-year law enforcement veteran who was deployed to Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, said the loss of cooperation was personal. He recalled a time when ICE worked closely with local police and maintained a unit at Rikers Island, taking more than 100 people a week into federal custody directly from the jail.

He blamed former Mayor Bill de Blasio for ending that arrangement. Genalo said former Mayor Eric Adams tried to restore cooperation but faced resistance from the City Council. Mamdani has called for ICE to be abolished and has opposed its enforcement operations.

Throughout the ride-along, Genalo criticized the city’s sanctuary rules and urged officials to put the question of police cooperation with ICE to voters. “Let the residents decide,” he said. A bipartisan effort to hold a public vote in 2024 and 2025 did not advance. Genalo suggested council members were concerned about how voters might respond.

He also criticized groups that monitor federal vehicles, alert residents and organize protests when agents are nearby. Before Thursday’s operation began, a car carrying civilians circled the agents’ meeting point and parked close by, raising suspicions that its occupants might be watching the team. Officers kept an eye on the vehicle until it left.

Despite his sharp criticism of city leaders and sanctuary policies, Genalo said he was open to meeting with Mamdani. “I just wish we could sit down and collaborate and come to an agreement because we have the same job to do, and that’s to keep the people of the community of New York City safe,” he said.

“The men and women of ICE in New York City will not waver,” Genalo added.