New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday that the reported migrants who were recorded on video assaulting two police officers over the weekend in Times Square should be deported.
“Get them all and send them back,” she said in response to a question about the people who have been arrested in connection with the assaults. “You don’t touch our police officers. You don’t touch anybody.”
She made similar remarks Wednesday after a reporter asked her whether the people should be deported.
“I think that’s actually something that should be looked at, I mean, if someone commits a crime against a police officer in the state of New York and they’re not here legally. Definitely worth checking into,” said Hochul, a Democrat.
A police spokesperson told NBC News on Thursday that all of the seven people arrested in the incident so far are migrants, but NBC News has not been able to confirm that or how long they have been in the U.S. At least two gave police addresses that have been used as shelters for newly arrived migrants. The Manhattan district attorney’s office would not comment on the suspects’ immigration statuses.
About 8:30 p.m. Saturday, officers tried to disperse a disorderly group on 42nd Street when a physical altercation broke out, a police spokesperson said.
When officers tried to arrest a person, “multiple unidentified individuals repeatedly kicked and punched the officers in the head and body,” the spokesperson said. The people then ran away, police said, adding that the officers sustained minor injuries. John Chell, the chief of patrol, condemned the assaults and called the culprits “cowards.” He said eight people were involved in the attack on the officers, one of whom is a lieutenant.
Five of the seven who have been arrested were arraigned and released on their own recognizance, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said. They are: Yorman Reveron, 24; Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel, 19; Kelvin Servita Arocha, 19; Wilson Juarez, 21; and Jhoan Boada, 22. Reveron was put on supervised release. They have all been charged with assault on a police officer, gang assault, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct. Those five defendants face felony charges that carry a penalty of up to seven years, the spokesperson said.
Hochul on Wednesday criticized the decision to allow the suspects to be released.
“I’m not satisfied with that at all,” she said. “These are law enforcement officers who should never, under any circumstances, be subjected to physical assault. It’s wrong on all accounts, and I’m looking to judges and prosecutors to do the right thing. We have changed bail laws. We have different laws now as a result of what we did in 2022, in the 2023 budgets, and we’re seeing a decline in repeat offenders. We have all sorts of data that shows it’s working, but that situation is abhorrent to me.”
On Friday morning, Chell expressed frustration that some of the suspects had been released.
“We just don’t understand why bail wasn’t requested,” he said on “Morning Joe.” “But that doesn’t mitigate that the judge could have looked at the circumstances. I don’t know if she saw the video. We don’t know yet, but she had the opportunity to step in and say, ‘Well, hold on a second.’”
Chell also said some of the men who have been released are believed to have fled New York by bus. The district’s attorney’s office said Friday that it was investigating those allegations. The men are not required to stay in New York based on the terms of their release.
Two other men, Yohenry Brito, 24, and Jandry Barros, 21, were arrested on charges of robbery and felony assault. The district attorney’s office has declined to prosecute Barros. A spokesperson for the office said “there is not sufficient evidence that he is one of the people who committed this terrible act.”
“The question here is whether the person arrested was even involved,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Brito was arraigned Thursday, and his cash bail was set at $15,000. He is due in court Tuesday.
The district attorney’s office said it sought bail in Brito’s case because he “doesn’t have a permanent address or strong community” and the bail is “reasonably necessary to ensure” his return to court. Brito pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in September and has two open cases in bench warrant status, the district attorney’s office.
“Violence against police officers is never acceptable,” the district attorney's spokesperson said. “It is paramount that we conclusively identify each defendant and specify each participant’s role in the incident.”
A spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that the city has more than 66,900 migrants in its care and that more than 173,900 migrants have come through its intake system since spring 2022.
Last week, more than 1,500 new migrants entered the city's care, the spokesperson said.
Democratic governors and mayors, including those in Boston, Chicago and New York, have been overwhelmed by the record numbers of migrants arriving in their cities, many of them bused from Texas as part of a campaign by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who wants stricter security at the southern border. The mayors have demanded more support from President Joe Biden.
Biden said recently that he is open to closing the U.S.-Mexico border if lawmakers send him a bill to sign.
“A bipartisan bill would be good for America and help fix our broken immigration system and allow speedy access for those who deserve to be here, and Congress needs to get it done,” Biden said over the weekend. “It’ll also give me, as president, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.”
