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Cruising crackdown in Penn Station bathroom puts at least 20 men in ICE custody
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Sep 24, 2025
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Ramsey Khalifeh
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Sep 24, 2025
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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
The crackdown comes as the Trump administration has pushed to arrest and deport more immigrants in New York, even those who have not been charged with any crimes. After the U.S. Department of Justice moved to drop federal corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year, the mayor’s office tried to give ICE access to Rikers Island — which was blocked by a state judge after a lawsuit filed by the City Council.
Trump earlier this year stripped the MTA of oversight of a long-sought redevelopment of Penn Station, which is owned by Amtrak but primarily used by the locally run Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit. His administration appointed former NYC Transit President Andy Byford to lead the rebuilding effort for Amtrak, and aims to begin work in 2027.
The bathroom has long symbolized the dilapidation at Penn Station, which has received national media attention as a hub for drug use and homelessness. Amtrak renovated and cleaned up the bathroom in 2017.
“It was always filthy,” said commuter Phil Brown, 65, who was standing at the concourse. “Before it was, use it when you can and sort of be careful because it was filled with urine and things were always overflowing in there.”
The “Sniffies” app features an open chat room for New York Penn Station. Anonymous users in the app’s group chat have been logging when police officers were spotted monitoring the bathroom in recent weeks. One user warned others to stop going to the bathroom, saying police officers were waiting in stalls and watching through the cracks.
But still, users continued posting call-outs to meet up for sex. Users have suggested using other bathrooms in the station, including at the LIRR concourse or in the Moynihan Train Hall, the latter of which is not owned by Amtrak.
A similar crackdown was subject to a major settlement against the Port Authority in 2022.
According to the settlement in the Southern District of New York, the interstate agency used discriminatory practices with plainclothes officers, falsely arresting and accusing gay, bisexual and gender nonconforming people of public lewdness and exposure in the terminal’s men’s restrooms because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. The settlement suspended the practice, required LGBTQ+ sensitivity training and found multiple officers and the Port Authority liable for violating the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
Supervising attorney Jennvine Wong at the Cop Accountability Project for the Legal Aid Society— which focuses on problematic policing and officer misconduct — said her team has received several cases representing men who were accused of public lewdness at the station.
“It’s definitely a cause for concern. One, because it was such a sudden and precipitous rise … and then of course, the fact that many of them were actually getting declined to prosecute and are being referred to diversion programs,” Wong said. She added that those two paths could indicate that the enforcement and cause for arrests may be flawed.
Wong’s concern with the latest enforcement at Penn Station is that Amtrak Police could be following similar practices.
A sign posted outside the Amtrak concourse men’s bathroom says, “This facility is monitored 24/7 by uniformed and undercover Amtrak Police Department officers. Any law violators will be prosecuted.”
Liam Quigley contributed reporting to this story.
Tagged
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new york city
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Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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