Mayor Mamdani demands ICE stay out of city-owned property in letter to DHS
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, says recent incidents sparked the letter.
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In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Mayor Zohran Mamdani says the city will take legal action if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents use city-owned property such as parking lots or the city's parks.
“We are being clear about this because we do not want any complicity in these immigration enforcement actions. We’ve made very clear that they are actions that threaten the safety of New Yorkers," Mamdani wrote.
News 12 has previously reported city officials calling on city lots to keep ICE off their property.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, says recent incidents sparked the letter.
“Just over the past couple of weeks, we've seen five different instances of ICE using parks [and] parking lots to actually use the staging facilities to go after our neighbors, families and community members," said Awawdeh.
A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security tells News 12 their presence in public parking lots is fully authorized and is a standard practice for law enforcement nationwide.
"Mayor Mamdani should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of NYC since he won’t. We need New York to cooperate with our officers and stop RELEASING criminals from their jails into New York’s neighborhoods," a DHS spokesperson wrote in part.
Awawdeh says it's a violation.
“By ICE using New York City parking lots, including Parks Department parking lots. They're violating our city sanctuary policies," said Awawdeh.
Mamdani says Parks staff have been notified what to do and who to call if they see ICE.
