Cruising crackdown in Penn Station bathroom puts at least 20 men in ICE custody

At least 20 immigrants have been taken into ICE custody at Penn Station since June, law enforcement officials said, as part of an aggressive crackdown by the federally run Amtrak Police Department on anonymous sex at the transit hub's notorious bathrooms. Nearly 200 people were arrested or detained since the start of June for alleged public lewdness or indecent exposure in the station’s men’s bathroom near its entrance at Eighth Avenue and 31st Street, Amtrak Deputy Police Chief Martin Conway confirmed to Gothamist. NYPD data shows only 12 people were arrested for public lewdness in and around Penn Station during the first five months of the year. But the data from Amtrak shows arrests for the violation skyrocketed since then. The bathroom is a hot spot on “cruising” apps like Sniffies, which men use to arrange public sexual encounters. The Amtrak Police Department has deployed undercover cops into the bathroom to catch people seeking illicit meetups, according to a police officer who took part in the crackdown and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to talk about the operation. But he said the enforcement caught nearly two dozen men with ICE “detainers,” which flag people to be taken into custody for deportation proceedings. Conway confirmed that some of the men arrested in the Penn Station bathroom were turned over to ICE. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on the transfers of men to their facilities. State and city laws ban New York police departments from turning over people in custody to ICE. But because Amtrak is a federal agency, its police department is required to alert ICE if someone has been flagged in its system. The enforcement blitz was first reported by the news website The City. Conway said the bathroom crackdown was sparked by complaints Amtrak received from customers.

Penn Station is one of the few areas in the city policed by Amtrak officers. Ramsey Khalifeh

“Naturally, we are going to address the conditions,” he said. “ We continue to patrol the restrooms and if and when we find any criminal activity, we do make arrests.” The Amtrak officer who asked not to be named said part of the enforcement strategy included plainclothes officers hiding in bathroom stalls or pretending to use the urinals. If police suspected any sexual activity, he said they would make an arrest. The officer showed a Gothamist reporter a screenshot from body-worn camera footage showing two men groping each other while standing at the urinals before they were arrested. Amtrak representatives declined to provide police reports related to the crackdown. The City reported on a man who said he was arrested in the bathroom after standing at a urinal for a prolonged period, causing an officer to get suspicious. The man reported he was detained in a back room at Penn Station, where officers called him a homophobic slur. His charge of public lewdness was dropped after he completed a diversion program, The City reported. An off-duty NYPD sergeant was also taken into custody at the Penn Station bathroom and issued a summons for public exposure earlier this month, the New York Post reported. Court records show his case was dropped on Tuesday.

Penn Station's bathroom has long been a symbol for the transit hub's dilapidated state. Ramsey Khalifeh