New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani blasted the decision to increase the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers headed to his city as the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins this week. He posted a comment on X on Monday afternoon, calling it “an attempt to divide us” before crediting immigrants as the reason soccer exists in the first place.
“Soccer would not exist without immigrants,” Mamdani said on X. “Immigrants play and coach the game, work in the stadiums, fill the stands, and make celebrations like the World Cup possible. Six of the players on the US Men’s National Team are immigrants.”
“We will not allow ICE or anyone else to sow fear in our communities — especially at this moment,” Mamdani added. “As the world comes to our city, we will stand proudly with our immigrant neighbors and reject these attacks for what they are: an attempt to divide us.”
Mamdani’s comments were not directed at any one person or agency. However, Border Czar Tom Homan warned in the past of a significant increase in ICE officers in New York City due to government officials refusing to assist federal immigration enforcement officers. During an interview on Fox News on Monday morning, Homan said more ICE officers were coming because politicians such as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul refused to cooperate with ICE.
“I’m going to keep my promise to Governor Hochul,” Homan said on Fox News on Monday.
He then explained why it was necessary to increase ICE’s presence in New York City, blaming it on Hochul’s efforts.
“I met with Gov. Hochul a couple of months ago,” Homan said. “I explained to her how we dealt with Minnesota, right? If we can work with the sheriffs and arrest a bad guy in the safety and security of a jail, that means less teams into the neighborhoods, which causes a lot of panic, a lot of problems, right?”
“I said, ‘But if you sign the legislation that I think you’re getting about ready to sign, that means I’m going to send more agents to New York, because now rather than one guy arresting one bad guy in a jail, now we’ve got to send a whole team into the neighborhood to find this person that didn’t want to be found, because the officer safety reasons,’ you know? Now we’ve got to arrest this guy in his turf. He has access to no-op weapons.”
HOMAN SAYS MOST ANTI-ICE PROTESTERS AT NEW JERSEY’S DELANEY HALL ARE NOT STATE RESIDENTS
“I told her, it’s safer for the community, it’s safer for the officers, it’s safer for the aliens to have these cooperations with the jails,” Homan added. “She signed the legislation anyway. So I made her a promise. You’re going to see more ICE agents you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming.”
Homan was vague on the implementation of the ICE deployment, but did emphasize it was necessary because Hochul refused to cooperate with immigration enforcement and banned ICE from arresting criminal illegal immigrants in the state’s jails.
“I just reviewed an operational plan,” Homan said. “I’m not going to tell you exactly when it’s going to happen, but it’s coming. I’m keeping my promise. We’re going to send more ICE agents to New York, because you took away the efficiencies of safe arrests in county jails.”
