New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Donald Trump’s incoming “border czar” have the “same desire” when it comes to the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations in the largest city in America, Adams said Thursday.
Tom Homan met with the Democratic mayor days after telling Democratic officials to “get the hell out of the way” of Trump’s ambitions for what the president-elect is calling the “the largest mass deportation operation in American history.”
“We have the same desire to go after those who have committed repeated violent acts among innocent New Yorkers and among migrants and asylum seekers,” Adams told reporters after his meeting with Homan.
“That’s what I heard from him,” he said. “I was pleased to hear that because we share the same desire,” he emphasized again.
But his 10-minute remarks did not answer how, exactly, his administration plans to collaborate with federal law enforcement and immigration authorities, and he assailed the media for “preconceived notions” and “distorted views” about his own approach to immigration enforcement.
“I’ll answer a few questions, but then I’m leaving,” said Adams, who is facing federal criminal charges stemming from allegations of corruption in his campaign. “It’s not gonna matter what I respond to anyway. You have your preconceived thoughts already.”
Trump’s pledge to arrest, detain and deport people living in the country without legal permission as part of his “day one” agenda would deploy federal, state and local law enforcement into immigrant communities across the nation.
Trump’s allies expect to expand his pledge to target potentially millions of people beyond the scope of undocumented immigrants who are accused of committing crimes.
Trump and Homan have said that US citizen children of non-citizen parents are expected to be deported along with their families.
More than 200,000 people seeking asylum have taken shelter in New York after Republican-led states in 2022 began shipping newly arrived immigrants to Democratic-led cities to protest President Joe Biden’s administration.
Those arrivals add to a population that includes roughly 400,000 undocumented New Yorkers.
After initially welcoming asylum seekers into a network of city-run shelters, Adams warned that the resources have spread the city thin, with spending expected to reach $12 billion into 2025.
The office of New York Comptroller Brad Lander says Trump’s mass deportation plans would “tear families apart, hollow out communities throughout the city, devastate our economy, and violate New York City’s values as an immigrant city.”
New York is often considered a so-called “sanctuary” city, among dozens of cities across the country that have some laws and policies in place intended to protect immigrant populations from unjust arrests, detentions or deportations.
