Whisked off to ICE-y Fla.
IMMIGRATION RIGHTS leader Ravi Ragbir was held at an ICE detention center in Florida on Friday as Mayor de Blasio said the city will investigate the NYPD’s handling of the massive protest over his deportation.
“We are definitely going to investigate what happened with our police officers because I am concerned to know exactly what happened, why it happened and if anything happened that was not appropriate in the handling of the protesters, that needs to be acted on,” de Blasio said during his weekly appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show.
Ragbir, 53, was arrested at a routine check-in with ICE officials in Manhattan on Thursday and set for removal to Trinidad and Tobago after 27 years in the U.S.
As he was transported out of the Javits Federal Building in an ambulance Thursday morning, hundreds of supporters filled the street and chanted his name as many clashed with police.
Eighteen people — including two City Council members who tried to block the vehicle — were arrested.
A police source said the ambulance drove Ragbir to Bellevue Hospital, but it was not immediately clear if he received any treatment.
Either way, officials quickly loaded Ragbir onto a plane bound for Florida despite an emergency petition filed by his lawyer in federal court in Manhattan, a well-placed source told the Daily News.
A judge ultimately signed a temporary order blocking Ragbir’s transfer away from the New York region, but ICE officials claimed his plane was already in the air when they received the ruling, the source said.
A follow-up hearing has been set for next week. If immigration officials deport Ragbir in the meantime, they could be held in contempt, the source said.
Arrested Thursday for allegedly obstructing the ambulance, Councilman Jumaane Williams praised Ragbir as a beloved community leader Friday and said the emergency vehicle was uses as a “ploy.”
“There were no sirens, there were no lights. That’s not an emergency vehicle, that’s a van with passengers,” Williams told The News. “There’s a picture of Ravi inside the van and he wasn’t sick.”
He said police were too rough with protesters.
“There was an immoral deportation taking place, there was nonviolent resistance to that and there was overwhelming force in response to that resistance,” Williams said.
Lieutenants Benevolent Association head Lou Turco said the mayor should be probing why Williams and Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez chose to block an ambulance.
“I just don’t understand how the mayor is not conducting an investigation into how two city councilmen think it’s appropriate to stand in front of an ambulance going to the hospital,” he said.
In his radio interview, de Blasio blamed federal officials for ratcheting up the tensions Thursday, insisting the “original sin” came when ICE detained Ragbir despite his history of nonviolence and ongoing court cases.
Ragbir is executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. He was granted permanent residency in 1994, but it was revoked after he was convicted of wire fraud in 2000. He served a 30-month prison term but later asked the court to revise the original judgment, citing faulty jury instructions and poor legal representation.