NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mayor Eric Adams met with President-elect Donald Trump’s novel “border czar” on Thursday. The Democratic mayor expressed enthusiasm to work with the novel administration to prosecute violent criminals in the city as long as Trump promises mass deportations.
The mayor’s meeting with Tom Homan, who will oversee the southern and northern borders in the Trump administration and be responsible for deportation efforts, came as Adams embraced parts of the president-elect’s tough immigration platform.
Adams told reporters at a brief news conference that he and Homan had agreed to prosecute people who commit violent crimes in the city, but gave no further details or future plans.
“We will not be a safe haven for those who repeatedly commit violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longtime New Yorkers,” he said. “That was my conversation today with the border tsar to find out how to proceed with those people who keep committing crimes in our city.”
The meeting marked Adams’ latest and most decisive step toward working with the Trump administration, a development that has spooked critics in one of the country’s most liberal cities.
In the weeks since Trump’s victory, Adams has mused about potentially scaling back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies and coordinating with the novel Trump administration on immigration issues. He also said migrants accused of crimes should not have due process rights under the constitution, but ultimately walked back those comments.
The mayor further stunned Democrats last week when he sidestepped questions about whether he would consider switching parties to become a Republican, telling reporters he was part of the “American Party.” Adams later made it clear that he would remain a Democrat.
For Adams, a centrist Democrat known for feuding with the city’s progressive left, recent comments on immigration are a result of frustration with the Biden administration over its immigration policies and a surge in international migrants in the city.
He maintained that his positions had not changed and argued that he was trying to protect New Yorkers, citing the law-and-order platform he has espoused throughout his political career and during his successful campaign for represented the mayor’s office.
At his press conference Thursday, Adams reiterated his commitment to New York’s generous social safety net.
“We will tell those who are here and abide by the law to continue to use the services that are open to the city, the services that they have a right to, the education of their children, the health care and public protection,” he said. “But we will not be a safe haven for those who commit acts of violence.”
While the education of all children living in the United States is already guaranteed by a Supreme Court ruling, New York also offers social services such as health care and emergency housing 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 immigration court as it is in criminal court.
Still, Adams’ recent rhetoric was seen by some critics as an attempt to pander to Trump, who might offer a presidential pardon in his federal corruption case. Adams was accused of accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreigners seeking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty.
Homan, Trump’s former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also met with Republicans in Illinois this week, where he urged Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, to begin negotiations on how Trump’s plans for mass deportation should look like. according to local media.
Separately, New York City officials this week announced further efforts to shrink the enormous system of emergency shelters for migrants as the number of novel arrivals continues to decline. Planned shelter closures include a massive tent convoluted built at a former federal airport in Brooklyn that advocates have warned could be a prime target for Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Elsewhere, Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are already advancing proposals that could support him make good on his promise to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally.
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Izaguirre reported from Albany, NY
