OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:38 PM – Wednesday, November 19, 2025
White House Border Czar Tom Homan revealed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in New York City will begin to ramp up ahead of mayoral-elect Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration into office on January 1st.
In a fiery Tuesday interview on Fox News, Homan declared that ICE operations would soon intensify, as the Trump administration zeroes in on “sanctuary” jurisdictions — cities and states that restrict local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
“I plan on being in New York City in the near future. We’re going to do operations in New York City. We know, in New York City, me and Mayor [Eric] Adams at one point had an agreement to let ICE into Rikers Island so we could arrest the public safety threats and the safety and security of that facility, but the City Council shut it down,” Homan stated.
Homan went on to reiterate that ICE is “going to be coming to New York City,” though he soon corrected himself, adding, “We’re already there now. I mean, teams are there now, but we are increasing enforcement presence in New York City — again, because they’re a sanctuary city, and we know we have an issue there with public safety threats in the street every day.”
“Regardless of, Republican or Democratic city, we’re going to enforce the laws across this country and take those public safety threats off the street,” he added. “I’ve said it from day one: Sanctuary cities, we’re flooding the zone because we know they’re releasing public safety threats in the communities every day.”
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Homan’s announcement comes as Democratic socialist Mamdani prepares to take office, setting up a major clash between city and federal leadership as the New York City mayoral elect has voted to fight back against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
In his November 4th election day victory speech, Mamdani issued a challenge to President Donald Trump in regard to his immigration policies.
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” Mamdani stated. “So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”
More recently, Mamdani also revealed that his team had reached out to White House officials to set up a meeting with the president — just one day after Trump revealed that he would be willing to hold a meeting with the incoming-NYC mayor — despite their major ideological differences.
“The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us and we’ll work something out,” Trump stated on Sunday. “We want to see everything work out well for New York.”
Mamdani emphasized that any potential meeting with President Trump would center on “tackling” New York City’s affordability crisis, while carefully sidestepping their sharp divide on immigration policy.
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