They came on Oct. 3 for Roberto Lamour, a Haitian national living on Lenox Road in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Because he resides in an apartment building with other families, they wound up asking someone else to let them in.

According to neighbors of Lamour in the Lenox Road building, the ICE agents who came for Lamour that day did not identify themselves honestly ; they claimed to be NYPD officers. A neighbor complied; it was not unusual, after all, for the NYPD to regularly patrol apartment building common areas in the community.

But the ICE agents who came for Lamour were not, and are not, the NYPD. The NYPD did not cooperate, and is not cooperating, with ICE agents on this and other immigration matters, pursuant to the city’s sanctuary laws. This was something the NYPD made clear in a statement to amNewYork about the matter.

Yet the false pretense ICE used to gain access to the building and apprehend Lamour was such that his family believed that the NYPD had actually taken him into custody. In fact, Lamour’s wife went to the local precinct house to ask about his status. It was only when officers there told her they did not have him in custody that she realized what had happened.

Meanwhile, ICE agents continue to troll New York City in search of immigrants on their list. They came to Elmhurst, Queens, on Thursday in a show of force near Elmhurst Hospital — bringing dozens of vehicles and masked agents to the streets. Residents organized and resisted with their voices, telling the agents to leave them alone. Eventually, the agents backed off and left the area.

This is what ICE thinks represents justice and law in America — using deception and aggression, hiding their faces, arming themselves to the teeth, wearing body armor that reads “POLICE ICE” to confuse the public as to their actual identity, trolling entire neighborhoods for whom they call “the worst of the worst,” but often taking people who have no criminal records at all.

What have they done? They’ve heightened anxiety and alarm within immigrant communities, forcing many undocumented people to live in the shadows. They have also sown mistrust within the communities for the NYPD — even as the NYPD does not participate in ICE operations and, in some cases, even disavows them.

In so doing, they have made the NYPD’s job of keeping all New Yorkers safe even tougher. If the NYPD cannot gain the trust of immigrant communities to report crime, how can they hope to solve crime and lock up the bad guys?

We trust the NYPD to keep New York safe. We trust its long-time federal partners such as the FBI and Secret Service to do the same. We know that, throughout their history, they have proven themselves more than capable of locking up “the worst of the worst” and protecting our city, all while earning the public’s trust.

And we know ICE has been nothing but trouble for New York. It’s time this army of deception and recklessness leaves law enforcement to the professionals — and leaves our communities alone.

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