New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Thursday that his administration’s policy of refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement is being echoed by voters and officials well beyond New York, pointing to Astoria, Albuquerque and Allentown as evidence the approach is catching on nationwide.
Mamdani made the remarks during an appearance on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” Co-host Willie Geist opened the segment by noting that exit polling showed roughly three-quarters of voters said ICE conduct and the administration’s deportation efforts influenced their vote, and asked how the mayor was managing the relationship between city government, the NYPD and federal immigration agents.
Mamdani said his administration has told federal officials directly that New York City will not assist with civil immigration enforcement.
“We’ve made clear to them that we are never going to assist them in civil immigration enforcement. We are not going to be a part of a deportation agenda in the way that they’ve built this administration,” Mamdani said.
He said the city has barred its own property and agencies from being used to support enforcement actions, backed by executive orders, and is asking private businesses that own parking lots to stop allowing those lots to be used as staging areas for ICE operations.
Mamdani cited an incident in which, he said, federal agents fired on a moving car in broad daylight shortly after school let out, with a five-year-old child inside the vehicle, as an example of the kind of enforcement tactics driving the pushback.
“What we’re talking about is a federal agency that is willing to open fire on a moving car in broad daylight right after school’s let out… They’re willing to shoot at somebody, despite the fact that there’s a five-year-old child in that same car,” Mamdani said.
He argued that the political strategy built around resisting ICE in New York City is now taking hold elsewhere.
“What you’re seeing from Americans across the country is that the very politics we were told could only succeed in New York City is actually succeeding from Astoria to Albuquerque to Allentown, across this country,” Mamdani said. “And what we’re seeing is that working-class Americans are tired of a corruption of their politics and a corruption of their prices.”
Mamdani did not provide further detail on the car-shooting incident he referenced or specify what actions, if any, local officials in Albuquerque or Allentown have taken that he considers part of the same trend.
Same old tactic of putting children in harm’s way deliberately, and then screaming about killing defenseless kids