NEW YORK — Immigrant advocates stopped a large-scale federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency operation near Canal Street Saturday by blocking the entrance to a Chinatown garage where the masked agents had gathered, temporarily preventing them from leaving, officials and advocates said.

ICE agents needed to call in the New York Police Department, who arrested protesters after giving multiple warnings to stop blocking the sidewalk and the garage entrance.

Once the caravan of ICE agents were finally able to depart, NYPD officers were recorded pepper-spraying demonstrators trying to chase the departing motorcade of vans and SUVs and throwing debris and garbage from a nearby dumpster at their vehicles.

“I saw the NYPD pepper-spray, mace people,” protester Jay Walker, 58, told The New York Daily News. “(The protesters) were trying to impede the ICE trucks from going on. At some point, the NYPD tackled a young woman to the ground. When people gathered around to document and to tell them to let her go, one of the officers got agitated and started spraying pepper spray in people’s eyes.”

Another protester, Mia Kurzer, said she was knocked down to the ground during the ensuing chaos.

“I was thrown down forcefully many times by the police for simply trying to make sure my neighbors are not kidnapped off the streets and never heard of again,” Kurzer, 22, said. “I was trying to block ICE vehicles from arresting my neighbors.”

Several protesters were arrested by police, but exact numbers and charges were not immediately disclosed Saturday afternoon. At least 10 people were seen handcuffed and escorted away by cops as the protest raged on.

The departing ICE agents drove to New Jersey to regroup, a law enforcement source told The News.

“They had to retreat with their tail between their legs after this failed operation,” the source said.

Ricky Patel, Homeland Security special agent in charge of the New York field office, called Police Commissioner Jesica Tisch and apologized for what occurred, a second source with knowledge of the conversation said.

“She told him that what happened today is unacceptable,” the source said. “ICE has tried this twice with these shows of force that are intended to cause chaos and disorder on our streets, but all they are doing is putting the public, federal agents and her cops in harm’s way. She warned them that this needs to stop because, if it happens again, someone will get hurt and it will be entirely on them.”

Monica Klein, a spokesperson for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, said, “The Mayor-elect has made it clear — including to the president — that these raids are cruel and inhumane, and fail to advance genuine public safety. New York City’s more than 3 million immigrants are central to our city’s strength, vitality and success, and the mayor-elect remains steadfast in his commitment to protecting the rights and dignity of every single New Yorker, upholding our sanctuary laws, and deescalation rather than use of unnecessary force.”

The confrontation started just before noon as a large crowd dropped traffic cones and stood in front of the entrance to the Centre St. garage near Howard St., about a block from Canal St.

Videos on news sites and social media show masked agents going back inside the garage as the protesters showed up. Some of them watched the gathering crowd from a second-floor landing.

Within an hour, dozens of protesters had converged on the garage. ICE agents called in the NYPD to set up barricades and push the protesters blocking the sidewalk and garage exit back so they could leave.

“Is this what you want, tearing America apart?” one protester demanded to know from an ICE agent.

Other protesters linked arms in front of the garage, chanting, “ICE out of New York!” as others pounded on the plastic barricades.

NYPD officials said they received a call for a disorderly group on Centre St., blocking egress from a building.

Cops made multiple arrests as they tried to move the protesters away from the garage entrance, the NYPD confirmed. According to a police source, the cops who pepper-sprayed protesters were from the Strategic Response Group. However, some of the SRG officers themselves were also seen staggering along and rubbing their eyes in pain after being pepper-sprayed.

Some protesters learned a procession of ICE agents were leaving the garage from another entrance and ran over there, dragging large planters and garbage cans into the middle of the street.

“One of the tactics that people use is that they take the garbage cans and push them into the street to try to impede the traffic,” Walker said. “When that happens, the garbage falls out.”

Protesters were taken into custody after they ignored multiple warnings to back away from the building, the NYPD said. Some were charged with disorderly conduct for jumping the barricades and throwing garbage, and dragging planters and city garbage cans into the street.

A request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately returned. Confrontations like this between ICE agents and protesters in other cities have resulted in stepped-up activity by ICE amid the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Because of New York’s sanctuary city law, the NYPD is barred from helping the feds with civil immigration enforcement, but cops can be called in if a crime or violation is being committed, such as protesters blocking sidewalks or stopping traffic.

Another city source with knowledge of the arrests was glad the NYPD had moved in to keep the peace.

“Without the NYPD, we get the National Guard in New York, which absolutely no one wants,” the source said.

Emails to City Hall and Mayor-elect Mamdani’s camp for comment were not immediately returned.

Earlier in the day, protesters learned of a large scheduled ICE operation much like the one that occurred on Canal St. a month ago when agents, in a surprise raid, swooped in to target illegal street vendors. The protesters on Saturday managed to locate ICE’s rallying point — the garage — and quickly alerted fellow protesters to join them, sources said.

Last month’s action on Canal St. stretched from Church St. to Lafayette St., between Chinatown, Soho and Tribeca.

As dozens of ICE agents detained a total of nine allegedly undocumented vendors at the Oct. 21 enforcement action, a crowd of people gathered to protest, then followed the agents down to 26 Federal Plaza — ICE’s Manhattan processing and detention center — where a larger protest took place.

Earlier this month, the Daily News reported that NYPD Commissioner Tisch received advance notice from the Trump administration last month that ICE agents were hours later going to conduct an immigration enforcement raid along Canal St. In response, sources say, Tisch directed NYPD officers to stay away from the ICE agents as they arrested vendors along the busy shopping street.

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