More ICE agents than 'you've ever seen' coming to NYC, Homan says, after Hochul signs bill stopping cooperation with local jails

The Department of Homeland Security plans to flood New York City with more ICE agents since Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed legislation that will stymie the department’s efforts, the White House border czar said Monday.

Hochul told Newsday that the move would be "wildly disruptive" to the nation's economic capital and that "Americans have had enough with the overreach of ICE."

On Long Island, immigration advocates said they feared a stepped-up U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign in the city could spill over to Nassau and Suffolk counties, and they expect any surge to be met with resistance.

Speaking on Fox News, Tom Homan said he will fulfill a "promise" he made to Hochul that if the legislation passed, he would send more agents to the city.

"I made her a promise," Homan said on "Fox and Friends." "You’re gonna see more ICE agents [than] you’ve ever seen in New York City. And it's coming."

"I just reviewed an operational plan," he added. "I'm not gonna tell you exactly when it's gonna happen, but it's coming. I'm keeping my promise. We're gonna send more ICE agents to New York because you took away the efficiencies of safe arrests in county jails."

He has previously said he will "flood the zone" in New York City.

Hochul in late May signed legislation that bars ICE agents from wearing masks and keeps immigration agents out of sensitive locations such as churches and schools unless they have a warrant.

The legislation also bars local governments from entering into 287(g) agreements that allow them to deputize local police as ICE agents and allows ICE to use local jails to hold detained migrants.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running against incumbent Hochul, has entered into such an agreement with ICE to use the Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow. Blakeman has said he will legally challenge the new law, which would nullify such agreements within several months. 

On Monday, Hochul said President Donald Trump had promised her he will not send a surge of ICE agents into areas unless local officials ask for it.

"I'm not asking now — that'll never happen, because they saw what happened to Minneapolis. They saw the chaos, and, literally, the murder of two innocent civilians who were just simply exercising their right to protest," Hochul said, referring to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, protesters whom ICE agents fatally shot in Minneapolis in January.

"I would think that the president, the former New Yorker, would understand, we want to all keep the city safe. It is the economic engine of the country, so that'll be wildly disruptive" if he sends a surge of ICE agents, Hochul said.

Minerva Perez, executive director of OLA, an East End immigration advocacy group, said Monday she fears an uptick in ICE agents in New York City will spread to Long Island.

"We already know there are outposts on Long Island. We already know that there are processing centers on Long Island," Perez said, adding that any surge in agents is likely "going to spill over to Long Island."

Nadia Marin-Molina, a longtime immigration advocate based in Nassau County, said any surge would provoke resistance.

"New York has been learning from L.A., Chicago and Minnesota that when the administration decides to invade and brutalize immigrant communities, it is up to the people on the ground to organize and stop it," she said. "And that is what we will do."

Homan argued on Fox that by prohibiting the agreements, ICE will be denied the ability to arrest illegal immigrants already being held in local jails and will have to send teams of agents into the community to find and arrest them.

"I’m going to send more agents to New York, because now rather than one guy arresting one bad guy in the jail, now we got to send the whole team into the neighborhood to find this person," he said.

Hochul said New York will help arrest real criminals but not immigrants without criminal records. "New York State is not a sanctuary state for criminals," she said.

"In New York, our local police need to be focused on local crimes and not filling up our jails with people who ICE has taken off our streets, out of our schools, out of our pizzerias, out of our homes, and I'm not going to be part of that," she said. "We're not going to be helping with civil immigration enforcement."

Newsday's Matthew Chayes contributed to this story.