NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming “border czar” on Thursday, with the Democratic mayor expressing an enthusiasm to work with the incoming administration to pursue violent criminals in the city while Trump promises a mass deportation strategy.
The mayor’s meeting with Tom Homan, who will oversee the southern and northern borders and be responsible for deportation efforts in the Trump administration, came as Adams has welcomed parts of the president-elect’s hardline immigration platform.
Adams told reporters at a brief news conference that he and Homan agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes in the city but did not disclose additional details or future plans.
“We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longstanding New Yorkers. That was my conversation today with the border czar, to figure out how to go after those individuals who are repeatedly committing crimes in our city,” Adams told reporters.
In the weeks since Trump’s election win, Adams has mused about potentially scaling back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies and coordinating with the incoming Trump administration on immigration. He has also said migrants accused of crimes shouldn’t have due process rights under the Constitution, though he later walked back those comments.
The mayor further stunned Democrats in the city when he sidestepped questions in two televised interviews last week on whether he would consider changing parties to become a Republican, telling journalists that he was part of the “American party.” Adams later clarified that he would remain a Democrat.
For Adams, a centrist Democrat known for quarreling with the city’s progressive left, the recent comments on immigration follow frustration with the Biden Administration over its immigration policies and a surge of international migrants in the city.
He has maintained that his positions have not changed and argues he is trying to protect New Yorkers, pointing to the law-and-order platform he has staked out throughout his political career and during his successful campaign for mayor.
At his news conference Thursday, Adams reiterated his commitment to New York’s generous social safety net.
“We’re going to tell those who are here, who are law-abiding, to continue to utilize the services that are open to the city, the services that they have a right to utilize, educating their children, health care, public protection,” he said. “But we will not be the safe haven for those who commit violent acts.”
While the education of all children present in the U.S. is already guaranteed by a Supreme Court ruling, New York also offers social services like healthcare and emergency shelter to low-income residents, including those in the country illegally. City and state grants also provide significant access to lawyers, which is not guaranteed in the immigration court as they are in the criminal court.
Still, Adams’ recent rhetoric has been seen by some critics as an attempt to cozy up to Trump, who could potentially offer a presidential pardon in his federal corruption case. Adams has been charged with accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty.
Homan, who was Trump’s former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, also met this week with Republicans in Illinois, where he called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, to start negotiations over how Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to local media.
Separately, New York City officials this week announced continued efforts to shrink a huge emergency shelter system for migrants because of a steady decline in new arrivals. Among the planned shelter closures is a massive tent complex built on a federally owned former airport in Brooklyn, which advocates have warned could be a prime target for Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Elsewhere, Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are already rolling out proposals that could help him carry out his pledge to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally.
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Izaguirre reported from Albany, N.Y.
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