White House border czar Tom Homan said Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to increase its immigration operations in New York City.
Homan railed against sanctuary city policies in an interview with Fox News‘s Bill Hemmer on Tuesday, saying if sanctuary city leaders don’t assist federal immigration officers, they’re “going to flood the zone.”
“So we’re going to be coming to New York City, we’re already there now, I mean, teams are there now. But we’re increasing enforcement presence in New York City again because they’re a sanctuary city, we know we have an issue there with public safety threats,” Homan said.
Homan’s comments come as President Donald Trump and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani plan to meet before Mamdani is sworn in on Jan. 1. Trump told reporters on Sunday that Mamdani “would like to come to Washington” and that the Trump administration wants “to see everything work out well for New York.”
National Guard deployment/pending by Washington Examiner
Homan echoed that he is also “willing to meet with anybody” regarding immigration-related topics.
“Let’s get together and work it together. We’d much rather work with these sanctuary cities than keep putting our agents at extreme risk going out in the community,” Homan said. “So we welcome any conversation.”
The Trump administration has announced several immigration crackdown operations in specific cities throughout 2025. Illegal immigration arrest operations have hit places such as Chicago, for “Operation Midway Blitz,” Charlotte, North Carolina, for “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” and most recently, according to the Associated Press, Mississippi and Louisiana, for “Swamp Sweep.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) warned the Trump administration against sending federal agents to New York, telling New York Public News Network that it would be bad for business.
“Chaos and instability in our streets generated by federal actions — whether it’s flooding the city with ICE, bringing the National Guard, or whatever he wants to do — is counterproductive for his economic objectives for our nation, as well as perhaps personal business interests,” Hochul said.
However, Homan emphasized that “we’re going to do operations in New York City.” He said he previously worked with Eric Adams, New York’s current embattled mayor, to try to send ICE officers to Rikers Island prison, but the City Council nixed the plan.
MAP: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DEPLOYMENT OF FEDERAL TROOPS IN US CITIES
“If they don’t want to assist and they want to keep pushing back and impeding our efforts, then we’re just going to send more teams there, we’re going to flood the zone,” Homan said.
The White House and Mamdani’s team did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.