ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul said she warned President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan that she doesn’t want ICE to expand its presence in the Empire State during a high-stakes sit-down Friday.
“We do not want to see any large-scale detention centers or expansion of detention centers here in New York,” Hochul told reporters after, declining to reveal details on Homan’s side of the conversation.
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The Democratic governor said she and Homan also spoke specifically about how federal immigration agents pick up detainees at New York jails.
“Just a conversation about what happens after people have served their time in our prisons,” she said.
The pair’s closed-door powwow followed Homan’s meetings with Republican state Assembly members, as well as GOP gubernatorial candidate and Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, on Thursday, sources said.
The czar’s meeting with Hochul arguably could be the most consequential as the governor seeks to wage war on Trump’s immigration agenda.
Hochul, who is up for re-election in November, vowed to restrict ICE activity in New York after immigration agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The governor maintained she wants to prohibit local facilities, such as those in Nassau County, from agreeing to hold inmates for immigration authorities. But Hochul said she did not specifically address that legislative proposal with Homan during their face-to-face.
State Operations Director Jacki Bray, a top aide to the governor who was in on the meeting, said that Hochul is still pushing to keep ICE from signing local agreements despite receiving reassurances, including directly from President Trump several weeks ago.
Hochul said she also demanded recourse for federal agents leaving a blind migrant on the streets of Buffalo to die last month.
The governor, who met with the man’s wife this past week, said she demanded Homan get the feds to provide visas for family members of the refugee still living in Myanmar.
Homan’s meet with Republican lawmakers Thursday revolved around technicalities in agreements, such as Nassau County’s, with ICE.
He also assured the GOP pols that federal immigration agents wouldn’t be repeating some of the “issues” that occurred in Minnesota in January, according to a source in the room.
Under pressure from lefty lawmakers ahead state budget talks, Hochul has promised to pass legislation to enshrine statewide sanctuary policies after the controversial deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
She also pushed a proposal to end existing agreements between local and federal law enforcements – a direct shot at Blakeman’s deal in Nassau County, in which ICE can use jail cells and local detectives directly cooperate with immigration officials.
ICE agents’ detainer requests – essentially, a heads up that an immigrant will be released from jail – in the Big Apple more than doubled last year after Trump took office, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.
But officials in New York City – a sanctuary jurisdiction where the law limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities, except in violent or serious crimes – only honored a relative handful, according to the report.
A native of New York’s north country, Homan drew fury from Democratic lawmakers when he met with and spoke alongside Republicans in the state capitol last year.
“New York State, you’ve got to change your sanctuary status and if you don’t, get out of the way. We’re going to do our job,” Homan said during last year’s appearance at the capitol.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, then a state assemblyman polling at just 8% in the Democratic mayoral primary race, used the opportunity to scream at Homan.
“How many more New Yorkers will you detain? How many more New Yorkers without charges? Do you believe in the First Amendment, Tom Homan?,” Mamdani shouted as he was blocked by state troopers during the confrontation with the border czar in a capitol hallway.
Hochul did not meet with Homan last year. She was out of town attending the funeral of former NAACP President Hazel Dukes.
