**Homan Warns NYC ICE Surge Ahead of Mamdani Inauguration**

(NEW YORK CITY) President Donald Trump’s former border chief Tom Homan has warned that New York City will face a sharp rise in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity as Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani prepares to take office, setting up a fresh clash over immigration enforcement in one of the country’s most prominent sanctuary cities.

Homan, who served as Trump’s border czar, said federal immigration agents are preparing to step up operations across New York, with more arrests and visible activity on city streets and in local jails.

“You’re gonna see a ramp up of operations in New York,” Homan said, describing New York City and other sanctuary cities as top priorities for ICE.

His comments signal that ICE plans to direct more resources toward cities where local governments limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Homan said sanctuary cities such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle are in the agency’s sights because local rules restrict how police and jails work with immigration agents, including on detainer requests and access to people in custody.

Homan has long argued that sanctuary policies put the public at risk, and he repeated that claim in his latest warning.

“allow public safety threats to be released into communities”
He said that by refusing to work closely with ICE, local officials “allow public safety threats to be released into communities” instead of being turned over to federal agents for possible deportation. He contrasted New York City and other sanctuary cities with states like Texas and Florida, where, he said, local police departments and sheriffs regularly cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement.

The warning comes at a politically charged moment for New York City, just as Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan-born immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018, is poised to become the city’s next mayor. Even before Mamdani takes office, his election has become a flashpoint in the national immigration fight, with Trump questioning both his stance on immigration and his place in the country’s political life.

Trump has publicly cast doubt on Mamdani’s legitimacy and vowed to squeeze the city financially if he leads New York City Hall. The former president has threatened to pull federal funding if Mamdani wins the mayoral race and has branded him a “communist,” sharpening the personal and political tension between the two men. Mamdani has answered those attacks by calling for unity and resilience in his victory speech, positioning himself as a defender of immigrant communities and city autonomy in the face of federal pressure.

Against that backdrop, Homan’s forecast of tougher ICE enforcement in New York is likely to deepen an already tense relationship between city leaders and federal authorities. New York City has long described itself as a sanctuary city, promising limited cooperation with ICE to protect non-citizens who live and work in the city, including people without legal status, asylum seekers and mixed-status families where some members are U.S. citizens and others are not.

Homan said that, despite those local policies, ICE intends to expand its presence on the ground. He described an operational shift in which agents will not only increase arrests of people with outstanding deportation orders, but will also focus on those with criminal records and those deemed national security threats. He said ICE is targeting individuals who have been ordered removed by an immigration judge and have not left, along with people who have been arrested or convicted of crimes.

At the same time, Homan acknowledged that the enforcement build-up involves more than just ICE officers. He said the National Guard, while not directly enforcing immigration law, is playing a support role in certain cities. According to Homan, Guard units are helping with “infrastructure, intelligence, and transportation,” especially in cities with high crime rates. He said similar joint efforts in Washington, D.C., had worked well and suggested that New York could see the same kind of deployments, with Guard members assisting in logistics while ICE officers carry out arrests and transfers.

Civil rights groups, immigration advocates and many local officials fear that such a broad expansion of operations will not stay limited to people with serious criminal records. Critics have warned that when ICE enforcement ramps up in sanctuary cities, people with no criminal history, including parents with U.S.-born children and asylum seekers with pending cases, often end up in custody. They say large-scale operations can lead to “collateral” arrests of anyone encountered during raids or courthouse actions, even if those individuals were not the original targets.

In New York, elected leaders have already voiced concern. The source material says that New York officials, including Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, have expressed alarm about the prospect that ICE could “target non-criminal immigrants and families.” They have stressed that the city and state will keep working with federal law enforcement “on matters of public safety” but “will not support actions that tear families apart.” Those comments point to a line local leaders say they are willing to draw: helping in serious criminal cases while resisting broader immigration sweeps.

Homan’s remarks also highlight the scale of the resources that the Trump administration has directed toward immigration enforcement during and after his term. According to the source text, the Trump administration has allocated over $170 billion for border and interior enforcement, with ICE claiming a large share of that money. The enforcement budget includes plans to hire 10,000 new ICE officers and to expand detention facilities around the country. Supporters of these policies argue that the extra officers and bed space are needed to control illegal immigration and remove people with serious criminal histories. Opponents describe the growing system of detention centers and private contractors as a “deportation-industrial complex” that profits from holding non-citizens for long periods.

In New York City, those national numbers translate into very local fears. Community groups in neighborhoods from Queens to Brooklyn say that talk of a “ramp up of operations in New York” has already spread anxiety among families with mixed status, where some members are citizens or green card holders and others have pending asylum claims or no legal status. Parents worry about being picked up on their way to work or while taking children to school. Workers in restaurants, construction, delivery and home care — sectors where many immigrants earn a living — say they are bracing for more spot checks and workplace visits.

Homan has argued that such worries are overstated if people follow the law, stressing that ICE is focusing on criminal offenders and those who “ignored deportation orders.” But past enforcement waves in other sanctuary cities have shown how hard it can be to draw neat lines in practice. When officers go to homes or apartment buildings looking for a particular person, they often encounter others whose papers are not in order. Those people can end up in the same detention pipeline, even if they have no criminal record and have lived in the United States for many years.

The tension over sanctuary cities also raises legal questions about where federal authority ends and local control begins. Cities like New York argue that the U.S. Constitution does not allow the federal government to force them to use police and jail resources for immigration purposes. The Trump administration has tried to use the threat of cutting grants and other funds to push cities into closer cooperation. In New York City, that threat is now intertwined with the personal fight between Trump and Mamdani, as the former president warns of pulling money while his former border czar promises more ICE presence on the streets.

For residents who want to know how ICE operates and what their rights are, official information is available on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website, though advocates often urge immigrants to seek legal advice from non-profit legal groups rather than dealing with enforcement agencies directly.

As Mamdani moves toward his first day in office, he faces a complex landscape: a White House and a former president hostile to his politics, a federal enforcement apparatus with billions of dollars at its disposal, and a city population that includes hundreds of thousands of non-citizens. His campaign message of unity and resilience will now be tested against Homan’s promise that New York City will be at the center of a renewed push by ICE to challenge sanctuary policies.

What happens in New York is likely to echo in other sanctuary cities that Homan named — Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle — where mayors and city councils have taken similar stands. For now, the message from Trump’s former border czar is blunt.

“You’re gonna see a ramp up of operations in New York,” he said, tying the future of ICE enforcement directly to the city’s politics and to the arrival of a mayor who built his career as a child of immigrants in a city that calls itself a sanctuary.