NEW YORK — In the thick of his campaign for Congress, former City Comptroller Brad Lander went on trial in Manhattan Wednesday, facing a violation stemming from his arrest last year during an ICE protest at 26 Federal Plaza.

Lander, 56, who’s vying for Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman’s seat in New York’s 10th congressional district, is accused of a relatively minor offense. He’s charged with obstructing the typical use of an elevator and elevator lobby on the 10th floor of the federal facility housing immigration hearing rooms, where more than a thousand undocumented New Yorkers have been swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other border patrol agencies since President Trump’s return to power.

The violation carries no jail time, but the trial comes on the eve of the Democratic primary, ahead of which fighting back against Trump has become a key issue. Lander passed on a plea deal, choosing instead to take the matter to a low-risk trial, drawing significant media attention.

“Your honor, we understand that the stakes of this case may appear low,” Lander’s attorney, Michael Bass, said in a brief opening statement before Manhattan Magistrate Judge Henry Ricardo, who’s presiding over the bench trial. “But this case is critically important. Arrest is the bludgeon of suppression, and this case is yet another example of the current administration’s suppression of dissent.”

Lander and 10 other elected officials were at the facility that towers over Foley Square, demanding to inspect conditions inside the holding cells on the building’s nonpublic 10th floor, where detainees had reported languishing for days on end in inhumane conditions.

They sat on the ground and pressed for access to the holding cells, with agents ultimately placing duct tape around gaps on the doors to prevent them from looking inside. ICE officials claimed the area served as a processing center, where migrants were briefly held before being transported to detention sites across the country.

“Today’s trial is for the court to decide a narrow issue — whether, on September 18, 2025, Bradford Lander unreasonably obstructed the usual use of the elevators and the elevator lobby on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ariel Cohen said in a brief opening statement.

“The government anticipates presenting evidence today that Mr. Lander was issued a citation after he sat on the ground in the elevator lobby on the 10th floor, directly in front of an elevator. He ignored multiple orders to move and instead began chanting the phrase, ‘We shall not be moved.’”

In a separate case playing out in Manhattan federal court, Judge Kevin Castel has temporarily barred arrests at the facility following ICE’s admission it had wrongly relied on an internal memo to authorize them. In another case, Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan is mulling whether to place permanent restrictions on the Department of Homeland Security’s operations at the facility.

The officials arrested alongside Lander took deals from the Justice Department in December, agreeing to avoid arrest on federal property for six months in exchange for prosecutors declining to pursue cases against them. Lander refused the deal, vowing to fight the matter at trial in a bid to elicit information about what the Trump administration is doing in the building.

The arrest was his second at 26 Federal Plaza last year.

“He did not block an elevator lobby. He did not block an elevator bank,” Bass said in his opening.

Bass said Lander was at the facility with one goal in mind, “to inspect ICE’s makeshift detention center” after Kaplan had issued a preliminary injunction in the separate case ordering DHS to take action against overcrowding and unsanitary detention conditions.

“He was the New York City comptroller then, and he was concerned for the safety of his constituents,” Bass said.

The attorney said the government had no evidence that anyone tried to use the elevator and that Lander prevented them from doing so. He said there were no signs prohibiting movement around the elevators and lobby, noting they were only stuck up after the incident.

Bass added that a senior Federal Protective Service officer had, in fact, told Lander and the other officials that they could stay put if they stopped knocking on the door to the ICE holding cells.

Quoting former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Bass said, “The First Amendment is often inconvenient, but that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligations to tolerate speech.”

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