Zohran Mamdani ramps up NYC's defiance of Donald Trump's deportation push

Last March, Zohran Mamdani was one of the protesters in Albany confronting President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, during a chaotic visit to the Capitol, as state troopers pushed the protesters away.

"How many more New Yorkers will you detain?" shouted Mamdani, then a long-shot candidate for New York City mayor and an assemblyman representing a corner of Queens. "How many more New Yorkers without charge?"

Now the mayor, Mamdani is mustering the full force of city government to defy Trump’s deportation agenda. In turbocharging longstanding policies that for decades have made New York a sanctuary city, Mamdani is also restricting what his predecessor Eric Adams put into place to allow more cooperation with federal authorities.

On Friday, Mamdani signed executive orders and set in force "a whole-of-government" approach reaffirming city policy against cooperating with immigration enforcers except in rare circumstances, blocking federal authorities from city property absent a judicial warrant, and auditing policies at municipal agencies to track the circumstances under which city officials do interact with federal authorities, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

"Each of us has known the feeling of arriving somewhere new alone, of depending on the kindness of someone else. As ICE fosters a culture of suspicion and fear, let this city of strangers set an example for how to make the sorrows of others our own. Let us offer a new path — one of defiance through compassion," Mamdani said Friday at an interfaith breakfast, citing Deuteronomy’s affirmation of the Lord loving the stranger. The mayoral staff gave religious leaders "Know Your Rights with ICE" pamphlets to distribute to congregants.

For now, immigration enforcers have not been out in force in New York City and the surrounding locales as in other cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. Still, there have been more than 5,000 apprehensions by ICE in the New York area, which includes the city, Long Island and certain other parts of the metropolitan area, according to the Deportation Data Project. Those apprehensions include those who show up to routine check-ins and mandatory court appearances. And there was a much-publicized raid in October by the feds on peddlers selling allegedly counterfeit luxury items in Manhattan's Chinatown.

The press office for the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, did not return a message seeking comment.

Mamdani’s defiance of Trump’s immigration enforcement stands in contrast with the policies of neighboring Nassau, where the county has entered into an agreement, under 287(g) of federal immigration law, in which local police can be deputized as immigration agents, and local jail cells hold immigrants who are in federal custody.

Newsday reported Monday that the county probation department is notifying federal agents to arrest immigrants at mandatory appearances in court before the defendant serves any prison time.

In 2025, a total exceeding 2,600 immigrants were locked up at the Nassau jail in East Meadow on behalf of ICE.

The actions of leaders in the city and across the border in Nassau are "polar opposites," said Alexander Holtzman, a Hofstra University law professor who is one of the lawyers suing the county and its police department over allowing the deputization of its police officers as immigration agents.

He gave the example of the victim of trafficking or other crimes who, in order to get a visa, must cooperate with law enforcement authorities as a condition of the visa. And an immigrant might be less likely to call the police at all when victimized in cases like domestic violence

"Noncitizens will have increased reason to fear arrest the second they cross the border into Nassau County," he said.

Chris Boyle, a spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, did not comment.

In Suffolk County, Holtzman said, a state appellate court since 2018 has ordered the county police to stop arresting noncitizens pursuant to ICE detainers, a request to hold someone for up to several days. Holtzman said that Nassau had previously agreed to comply with that ruling too, but, he said, the county is no longer honoring it.

In November, upon Mamdani’s victory in the mayor’s race, Newsday reported that Blakeman planned to install surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology and license plate readers along its border with the city, which spans roughly 15.5 miles.

Boyle did not say whether that project had begun.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.