A 36-year-old migrant from Guyana who first entered the United States under the DACA program now faces federal charges for allegedly firebombing at least seven churches and businesses across Queens and Brooklyn with Molotov cocktails, attacks that spanned much of June and continued even after two earlier arrests for violent threats.
Yogesh Sayrange appeared in court Thursday after prosecutors linked him to a string of incendiary attacks targeting houses of worship and commercial properties in New York City neighborhoods, as first detailed by Breitbart News. The arrest that brought the broader pattern to light came on June 25, when Sayrange was taken into custody for firebombing a Brooklyn smoke shop. At the time, police found two additional Molotov cocktail devices in his bag.
Federal authorities say Sayrange came to the U.S. from the South American nation of Guyana nearly two decades ago. He was initially allowed to stay under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But when he aged out of DACA, his protections lapsed, and he has been living in the country illegally ever since.
The timeline prosecutors have assembled paints a picture of rapid escalation. On June 12, Sayrange was arrested for threatening someone with a metal knuckle knife. Four days later, on June 16, he was arrested again, this time for waving an axe at a man and threatening to behead him.
Neither arrest stopped what came next.
Throughout June, investigators say, Sayrange hurled Molotov cocktails at a series of targets across two boroughs. Among the locations named: Iglesia Bautista El Mesias, a Baptist church in Ozone Park; a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Woodhaven; and a medical transport company in Cypress Hills. Prosecutors say at least seven locations were hit in total. Some sustained damage. Others did not.
The June 25 attack on the Brooklyn smoke shop led to Sayrange's arrest on that specific charge. When police took him into custody, they recovered two more Molotov devices he was carrying.
A police report records Sayrange's alleged statements after his arrest. The words attributed to him are jarring. According to the report, Sayrange told authorities:
"Yes, I f***ing firebombed them. They're Muslims, scum and terrorists."
He also allegedly said of the two devices found in his bag:
"I had two more in my bag. I was going to finish the job."
But investigators have flagged a complication. The churches Sayrange allegedly targeted did not all belong to the same faith. Iglesia Bautista El Mesias is a Baptist congregation. The Kingdom Hall belongs to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Investigators say they are not quite sure of Sayrange's motive, given that the churches followed various religious sects, a detail that sits uneasily alongside the anti-Muslim language attributed to him.
That disconnect remains unresolved. No official explanation has been offered for how Sayrange selected his targets, or whether the anti-Muslim statements reflect a genuine ideological motive or something else entirely.
The sequence of events raises a hard question that the available facts do not yet answer: What happened after the June 12 and June 16 arrests? The disposition of those cases, whether Sayrange was released, held, charged, or processed through the system, is not publicly clear from the current record. What is clear is that neither arrest prevented him from allegedly carrying out a firebombing campaign that stretched across multiple neighborhoods and endangered congregations, workers, and bystanders.
For residents of Ozone Park, Woodhaven, and Cypress Hills, the arithmetic is simple. A man was arrested twice in one week for threatening people with weapons. Within days, Molotov cocktails were landing on churches and businesses. And when he was finally arrested for a firebombing, he still had two more devices ready to go.
The immigration dimension of this case adds another layer. Federal authorities say Sayrange arrived from Guyana roughly two decades ago and received residency protections under DACA, the Obama-era program that shielded certain individuals brought to the country as children from deportation. When Sayrange aged out of the program, those protections ended. He did not leave. He did not, as far as the public record shows, obtain any other lawful immigration status.
He has been in the United States illegally ever since, federal authorities stated.
The case illustrates a pattern that critics of DACA have warned about for years: the program's protections can lapse, but the individuals who lose them do not necessarily enter any enforcement pipeline. They simply remain, sometimes for years, sometimes for decades, without legal status and without meaningful contact with immigration authorities until something else forces the issue.
In Sayrange's case, what forced the issue was a string of alleged arson attacks on houses of worship.
Several important details remain absent from the public record. The specific charges Sayrange faces have not been enumerated in available reporting. The court in which he appeared Thursday has not been named. The identities of four of the seven targeted locations have not been disclosed. No injuries have been reported in connection with the attacks, but no official statement has confirmed their absence either.
It is also unclear which federal agency, whether the FBI, ATF, or another body, is leading the investigation, or how investigators linked Sayrange to all seven attacks. The method of identification, whether through surveillance footage, forensic evidence, or witness testimony, has not been made public.
And the most basic question, why a man who had been arrested twice in a single week for violent threats was apparently free to continue attacking churches and businesses, has not been addressed by any official.
The congregants at Iglesia Bautista El Mesias did not set immigration policy. The Jehovah's Witnesses in Woodhaven did not design the DACA program or decide how to handle lapsed recipients. The workers at the Cypress Hills medical transport company did not choose to leave a man with two weapons arrests on the street.
They are the ones who had Molotov cocktails thrown at their buildings.
When a system fails to enforce its own rules, on immigration status, on pretrial detention, on basic public safety, the cost is never paid by the people who designed the system. It is paid by the people who show up to church on Sunday morning and hope the doors are still standing.
