Stopping Trump deportation surge is topic of Mamdani-Minneapolis mayor meeting

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey walked into New York City Hall on Thursday for a planned meeting with Zohran Mamdani where the men were discussing "next steps," Frey said, of how to resist President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.

Speaking beforehand on the City Hall steps, Frey assailed Trump's surge of thousands of federal immigration agents into Minneapolis; Frey said the agents' presence "is not constitutional, is not OK and is anti-American."

"We want to make sure that what happened in Minneapolis does not happen in other cities and states throughout the country," Frey told reporters. "We want to make sure that our immigrant neighbors are protected."

Frey said he was heartened by how tens of thousands of people in his city protested, brought food to immigrants afraid to leave home and otherwise "standing up for their neighbor." 

Frey said he's willing to work with the federal government to prevent violent crime and catch shooters, killers and rapists, but "what we're not gonna make this about is where you're from." 

Longstanding laws in both Minneapolis and New York City prohibit local cooperation with the federal government on immigration enforcement.

Mamdani spokeswoman Dora Pekec said in a text that the men "discussed their shared values when it comes to keeping our cities safe as well as standing up for our vibrant immigration communities." They also discussed "their mutual love for long distance running," she said.

So far, New York City has avoided the surge of thousands of immigration enforcement agents that the Trump administration has unleashed into cities like Minneapolis, which has been beset by street protests, widespread unrest and the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens by federal agents.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said this week the enforcement surge in Minnesota was being dialed back and that local officials had agreed to let agents detain immigrants at local jails, a claim the city had not confirmed.

Asked at an unrelated news conference earlier Thursday, Mamdani declined to say why a similar arrangement should not be the policy in New York City.

"I am proud of our sanctuary city policies that we have. I believe that our values and our laws are not bargaining chips. They are not things for us to be ashamed of, and they are also policies that have sought and delivered on keeping New Yorkers safe over many years," the mayor said. "I’ll let the mayor of Minneapolis speak to the policies there."

Last year, Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams tried to return immigration agents back onto the city’s Rikers Island jail complex — from which the de Blasio administration had booted them about a decade ago — but the idea was rebuffed by a judge and never implemented.