Under New York State law and department policy, sealed records of arrests or summons cannot be released. But the police gave the documents to Department of Homeland Security investigators who had requested them as part of what the investigators said was a criminal investigation, Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the woman’s lawyer said on Tuesday.

The documents, the lawyer said, then became part of the government’s case for deporting the woman, Leqaa Kordia, 32, who is Palestinian.

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On Tuesday, Commissioner Tisch said at a City Hall news conference that an official from Homeland Security Investigations in New Jersey had asked for information about Ms. Kordia, saying that she was being investigated in connection with money laundering.

Ms. Kordia’s lawyer said later that the commissioner’s statement was the first that he or his client had heard of such an investigation.

Commissioner Tisch said that while the city’s sanctuary laws bar it from helping immigration authorities in civil deportation cases, criminal investigations are a different matter. The Police Department handed over information, “which was all done according to procedure,” she said, without specifying precisely what was transmitted to federal investigators.

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