Mamdani demands end to migrant raids in New York: ‘I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities’

The brutality of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant offensive has reached New York, and the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, says he will not “stand by.” While details of the incident were still emerging, Mamdani called what happened “an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation” in a forceful statement on his social media. “I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities,” he wrote.

On Thursday evening, Mamdani spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to try to negotiate the release of a 28-year-old Dominican migrant that an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot in broad daylight in the Bronx on Thursday, in a neighborhood filled with families and children at the end of the school day.

“Those negotiations were unsuccessful. Just moments ago, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away,” said the mayor at a press conference held at around 11 p.m. His voice could barely be heard above the din of the demonstrators who kept showing up as the hours elapsed. Some of them took issue with the mayor himself.

Just a few hours earlier, at around 4 p.m., a man had been wounded after being shot by an ICE agent in an area of the borough of the Bronx known as Marble Hill. Several immigration officers encircled a car containing the target as well as a young child sitting in the back seat. The officers shot six times at the car. The man, whose name has not been released, is reportedly from the Dominican Republic, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which also said he is undocumented and has a criminal record.

“ICE undermines public safety,” said Mamdani at the news conference. “It makes us less safe. New York will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers. And we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again: this is an agency that must be abolished.”

Thursday’s shooting is the first incident of its kind in New York amid Donald Trump’s immigration offensive, which has left fatalities across the country from California to Maine. It is also a political test for Mamdani. The socialist mayor took office earlier this year in the nation’s most populous city, where 38% of residents were born abroad, promising to protect New York’s immigrants — like himself — from the Trump administration.

New York is a sanctuary city, and the state is one as well, meaning local authorities do not cooperate with the federal government on immigration matters. As a result, the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened the city, saying it could become the next epicenter of its aggressive campaign against immigration.

However, although ICE arrests have risen in recent months — from 927 in May to 1,567 in July, according to federal data compiled by the Deportation Data Project — New York had so far avoided the large, media-driven raids seen in cities such as Minneapolis or Chicago, where the administration sent thousands of agents as part of large-scale operations.

Since taking office, Mamdani has been outspoken in his opposition to Trump’s immigration agenda. On the night he won the election, he addressed the president directly: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up!” — and reminded him: “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”

From City Hall he has continued to voice his disagreement with Trump on this issue and warned about the effects of the administration’s policies on New York’s immigrant residents. “I have told the president directly that ICE is an agency that operates with cruelty and inhumanity. I believe ICE should be abolished,” Mamdani said in an interview with EL PAÍS in August.

However, since Mamdani took office, the mayor and Trump have maintained a surprisingly cordial relationship. Although Mamdani promised during his campaign to be the Republican’s worst nightmare, and the president, for his part, called him a communist lunatic, the two have had two meetings and reportedly keep in touch by phone.

Now the mayor must show how far his political capital with the president stretches on one of the Democrats’ most important issues, as buoyed by victories by progressive candidates such as Mamdani, they try to recover ground in next month’s midterms, in which Trump is fighting for control of Congress.

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