New York City Council Staff Member From Venezuela Detained by ICE

Homeland Security said the staffer overstayed his 2017 tourist visa.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (R) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (L) attend a news conference at the headquarters of the NYPD in New York on Jan. 6, 2026. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A New York City Council staffer was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 12, when he showed up for a scheduled court check-in at a Long Island immigration facility.

Rafael Andres Rubio Bohorquez, a Venezuelan national, worked as a data analyst for the council.

“Rubio entered the United States on a B2 tourist visa in 2017 that required him to depart the United States by Oct. 22, 2017,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an emailed statement.

“He had no legal right to be in the United States.”

According to City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Rubio was authorized to work and had legal status in the United States until October of this year.

The staffer called the council’s human resources department to alert it and ask for help.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Rubio has a prior arrest for assault and does not have authorization to work.

He was initially detained at the Long Island facility and then transferred to the Manhattan facility on Varick Street.

At a Monday evening press conference, Menin, who expressed frustration at being unable to get in contact with the immigration office where Rubio was detained, said: “We are doing everything in our power to secure his immediate release.”

According to Menin, the staffer had signed a statement to attest that he had never been arrested.

Local leaders criticized the arrest.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a post on X Monday evening stated that he was “outraged to hear a New York City Council employee was detained in Nassau County by federal immigration officials.”

“This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” he said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in a post on X on Jan. 12 stated: “Detaining people during routine court appearances doesn’t make us safer. It erodes trust, spreads fear, and violates basic principles of fairness.”

Since early January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been conducting an enforcement operation dubbed “Operation Salvo” in New York City.

DHS announced on Jan. 9 that the operation had resulted in the arrest of 54 criminal illegal aliens. Several are connected to transnational gangs, such as Trinitarios, which was responsible for the July 2025 shooting in New York City of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer. Those arrested are also implicated in weapons trafficking, human and drug trafficking, as well as robberies and violent attacks across the city, DHS said.

“The Trump Administration is using every single tool that we have to protect the American people,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.