An army veteran has been charged with federal arson after prosecutors said he set fire to the entrance of a Manhattan federal building that houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s New York field office, injuring three people and forcing a major law enforcement response.
Andrew Arrabaca, 43, was charged Tuesday in the Southern District of New York with one count of arson for allegedly setting the blaze outside 26 Federal Plaza on Monday morning. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in prison and a maximum of 40 years.
During his initial court appearance, a federal judge ordered Arrabaca held without bail.
Federal prosecutors allege Arrabaca spent months planning the attack. According to charging documents, he traveled to the building carrying flammable liquid, fireworks, a pellet gun and other weapons before pouring the liquid at the building’s entrance and igniting it. Authorities said he also discharged the pellet gun and set off fireworks, creating panic outside the busy federal complex.
Arrabaca was found in possession of “anti-ICE literature” and yelled “derogatory terms to ICE” at the time of his arrest, James Barnacle, the assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office said on Monday, calling the man “an anti-American, anti-government extremist.”
“His alleged acts appear to have been motivated by his anti-Government and anti-ICE beliefs,” Barnacle said is a press release announcing the charges Tuesday.
Three people suffered minor injuries, including a Federal Protective Service officer who was hurt while taking Arrabaca into custody, according to authorities.
Barnacle said Monday that Arrabaca said he was targeting the federal building in a postarrest interview and that “he was okay if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians.”
The FBI and the New York Police Department are handling the investigation in tandem with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is collecting evidence to conduct interviews.
Five law enforcement sources who spoke to MS NOW immediately after the arrest said authorities were working to determine whether the act was politically motivated or if mental health issues played a role, or both, in the early stages of their investigation.
“This morning an individual deployed an incendiary device outside of 26 Federal Plaza in New York,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on social media. “The individual is in custody and two minor injuries reported thus far. FBI [Joint Terrorism Task Force] is investigating the incident.”
The 41-story building, located in lower Manhattan, also contains offices for the FBI and other federal agencies, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the incident “deeply disturbing” in a statement posted to social media.
“I’m relieved no one was seriously injured and that a suspect is in custody. My team is in touch with the NYPD and we will support the federal investigation. Our administration will continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city — and hold accountable any who threaten that,” Mamdani wrote.
The incident followed two fatal shootings by federal immigration officers in the same week. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three, was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Houston on July 7 during a traffic stop that took place while he was driving his construction crew to a job site. Six days later, 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Guerrero was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine, during a vehicle stop.
The killings sparked outrage among state and federal lawmakers, who demanded accountability from the Department of Homeland Security. The department agreed to temporarily suspend some vehicle stops for immigration enforcement operations, but the suspension was swiftly overturned by President Donald Trump.
“We must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP! Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands,” Trump wrote in a July 15 post on Truth Social.
The fatal use of force incidents also renewed scrutiny over why DHS has failed to equip federal immigration agents with body-worn cameras. Neither of the ICE officers involved in the Maine and Texas killings was wearing the accountability equipment at the time of the shootings. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Trump fired in March, pledged to deploy body cameras to all ICE field offices nationwide after the January killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The initiative was granted $20 million in the latest DHS funding bill as part of a deal to address Democrats’ calls for reform across the agency’s operations, but many field offices reportedly still lack the equipment. Trump administration officials have said deployment was delayed by funding lapses during the most recent government shutdown.
“We’re collecting the evidence, and we know there were anti-government and anti-American statements made, and we know that an incendiary device and gasoline were used to start a fire,” Barnacle said Monday.
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