New York, Jan 20 (.) New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday he supports getting rid of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying he’s tired of seeing a new image every morning of “someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life”.
“I am in support of abolishing ICE and I’ll tell you why. Because what we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist,” Mamdani said on ABC’s “The View”, amid the Trump administration ramping up its crackdown on illegal immigration.
“We’re seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of an immigration law, but instead what’s it’s doing is terrorizing people no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case,” he stated, The Hill reported.
The Trump administration has surged ICE and Customs and Border Protection personnel to Democratic-run cities across the nation, including New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The moves have been heavily scrutinized by Democratic lawmakers and led to massive protests in the wake of an ICE officer fatally shooting Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month.
An Economist/YouGov poll released last week found that 46 percent of respondents support abolishing the agency, with 43 percent opposed to getting rid of the agency.
“I’m tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life,” Mamdani said Tuesday. “What we need to see is humanity, and there is a way to care about immigration in this city and in this country with a sense of humanity.
“What we’re seeing from ICE is not it and we have not seen that from them in a long, long time,” the New York City mayor added.
He also criticized ICE during his mayoral campaign, telling Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan last June that it is a “rogue agency” and that “when we think about what this country needs, and a humane immigration policy that has some thought and care for law and order, that clearly is not ICE.”
After he was elected, Mamdani released a video advising migrants on what to do if federal immigration enforcement officers confronted them, noting that individuals have the right to remain silent, ask whether they are free to go while being and film agency operations so long as they do not interfere with an arrest.
“If ICE does not have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, you have the right to say, ‘I do not consent to entry,’ and the right to keep your door closed,” he said in the video.
Last week, Mamdani also said he was “outraged” by federal immigration officers detaining a New York City Council employee. New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin wrote in a statement that the employee, who was of Venezuelan descent and obtained legal authorization to remain in the country in October, was at a “routine immigration appointment” on Long Island when authorities picked him up.
“We are doing everything we can to secure his immediate release, and we demand swift and transparent action by the federal government on this apparent overreach,” Menin added.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) have also pushed for ICE’s abolishment. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), however, said he does not support shuttering the agency.
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