Hochul warns against federal government's threatened surge of ICE agents

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday warned the Trump administration against a Minneapolis-style ICE surge in New York City, saying it would sow chaos and violence just as World Cup games are getting underway in the region.

White House border czar Tom Homan said this week that the city will face a large increase in ICE agents because of anti-ICE legislation signed by Hochul last month.

"I want to send a message right back: not here, not New York, not ever," Hochul told a group of immigrant advocates and elected officials at a round table in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Hochul said President Donald Trump had personally promised her he will not send a surge of agents into the city unless it is requested. Hochul said New York does not want it.

Sending a large contingent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into Los Angeles and Minneapolis has ended in chaos and violence, she said.

"We cannot let that happen here," she said. "It hurts the economy. It hurts the psyche of the community. It lends itself to more violence."

The legislation signed by the governor bans ICE agents from wearing masks and from entering sensitive locations such as houses of worship and schools unless they have an arrest warrant.

It also prohibits local governments from entering into 287(g) agreements with ICE, which allow them to deputize local police as ICE agents and use local jails to hold Immigrants.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has entered into one such agreement, which allows ICE to use the Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow. He has previously threatened to sue if Hochul signed the new law, which takes effect within several months.

Homan had told Fox News on Monday that if New York adopted the legislation, he had promised he would flood New York City with more agents than "you've ever seen" — a pledge he said he now intends to carry out. 

In response to an inquiry from Newsday on Thursday, Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said: "It’s shameful that we have governors like in Virginia and governors in New York and governors in California and other sanctuary states that are refusing to allow their law enforcement to join in the 287(g) program where we simply go after the worst of the worst."

"And we say to local law enforcement and state enforcement that if you will help us, you don’t have to enforce, just if you run across these individuals, keep them. We’ll pay you for your time," he said.

Newsday has reported that less than 5% of immigrants held at the Nassau County jail under the ICE partnership had convictions for violent crimes. Nearly 60% had no criminal convictions or pending charges at all.

Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the Manhattan-based New York Immigration Coalition, said Hochul's visit to a pro-immigrant non-profit in Queens helped send a message that the state government is strongly opposing ICE.

“We’re fighting against a federal government that is trying to instill panic, chaos and fear in our communities," said Awawdeh, who attended the roundtable. “They’re trying to tear families apart, gut our communities and harm all of us and we’re not going to stand for that."