A 72-year-old woman says ICE maced her while she filmed an arrest in Manhattan, and now she’s suing under a law made for her

A 72-year-old New York woman has filed a federal tort claim after she says an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent pepper-sprayed her while she filmed federal agents at work in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood. Linda Wolff, a longtime immigrant rights supporter, said the encounter happened three weeks ago as agents were trying to get a disabled vehicle towed. As reported by NBC New York, Wolff had gotten word that agents were making arrests nearby and decided to record what she saw.

Video of the encounter shows an agent walking up to Wolff on the sidewalk and spraying her at close range while she continued filming with her phone. “They walked over and they maced me,” Wolff said. She said her eyes and skin burned in the hours afterward, but the incident has not stopped her from continuing to document ICE activity in the neighborhood.

Wolff is now relying on a new New York law that allows individuals to sue federal immigration agents in state court over constitutional rights violations. She appeared alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this week to highlight the legislation, which also bars local police departments from taking part in federal immigration enforcement. Her attorney said the claim is among the first attempts to test the statute since it was signed into law.

The lawsuit is testing a law built to get around federal immunity

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson maintained that the agents acted within the bounds of their training and used only the minimum force necessary during the encounter. Wolff’s attorney, civil rights lawyer John Burris, said part of the goal of the lawsuit is to pierce the anonymity that often shields federal agents during these operations. Questions about accountability inside the Trump administration have surfaced elsewhere in Washington too, with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche recently facing questions over his stance on refusing orders in an unrelated dispute.

Lawsuits against federal agents accused of misconduct have historically had a low success rate. A 1971 Supreme Court ruling briefly opened the door to so-called Bivens claims against federal officers, but the court narrowed that path sharply beginning in the 1980s, citing separation of powers and national security concerns. A 2022 ruling in Egbert v. Boule further limited the use of Bivens claims specifically against immigration agents, and the Westfall Act allows the U.S. Attorney General to shift personal liability in such cases onto the federal government instead.

To work around those federal limits, New York and at least eight other states have introduced so-called converse-1983 statutes, which mirror a federal civil rights law but apply it at the state level. As detailed by Documented, state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a sponsor of similar legislation, said the goal is to create legal options that federal courts currently block.

“This legislation is one of the tools we have to push back,” Lasher said. Legal scholars have cautioned the approach remains untested, even as related fights continue to play out elsewhere in the federal government, including the DOJ’s ongoing voter roll fight with several states.

No court date has been set, though Wolff’s law firm said it is also pursuing similar excessive-force claims tied to ICE operations in Minneapolis.