A member of a group that urges immigrants to know their rights used some of that training to keep immigration officers from arresting two people who were in the car with him.
Bryan MacCormack, 30, executive director of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement in upstate New York, was captured on video refusing to open his car door March 5 to what an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer insisted was a "warrant of arrest of alien."
MacCormack had just accompanied two immigrants without legal status to the courthouse to deal with minor traffic citations. They were in their car about 20 seconds when they were pulled over by ICE agents, he told NBC News.
Before the agent got to the car, MacCormack told one of his passengers to start recording video and reminded them of the rights. The passengers had been told they might get pulled over and were prepared for the possibility, he said.
The video begins as MacCormack is telling an ICE officer at his car window that the papers he has handed him are not warrants for arrest.
"Yes they are, sir, warrant of arrest of alien," the unidentified officer says to MacCormack as he points to a line on the papers he is holding. The officer's face can't be seen in the video.
"Yeah, warrant of arrest of ... alien, not signed by a judge. It’s not a judicial warrant. I have no obligation to oblige by that warrant," MacCormack responds.
