Mayor Mamdani threatened legal action against the Trump administration Monday, accusing federal immigration agents of using city-owned parking lots as staging grounds.
The threat, delivered in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin as well as ICE officials in New York and Washington, comes after reports of ICE agents using parking lots at Van Cortlandt Park and near Flushing Meadows Corona Park, near a city-run preschool, to park cars and hold meetings.
“ICE has no right to use our property as a base for tearing families apart. That goes for every park and every lot this City owns. This unauthorized use of City property must end now,” Mamdani said in a statement.
“Today, I’m telling DHS to order its agents off our lots. If they keep coming back, we will see them in court.”
The city’s sanctuary policies prevent its cooperation with civil immigration enforcement matters and limit communication between local and federal authorities.
Mamdani, who’s forged a remarkably friendly relationship with President Trump, has attempted to leverage that relationship on immigration matters several times, including over the weekend, when he said he reached out to Trump to get a visa for the mother of a 15-year-old immigrant fatally shot in the Bronx, and last month, when he pushed Trump to expel immigration agents from New York City after the shooting of Oscar Belgal.
At a press availability on Monday, Mamdani said that he and the president had spoken about ICE, but not about the parking lot issue.
“That is one of the clearest examples of a stark policy difference between the two of us, and that conversation will continue,” he said.
Along with the legal threat, Mamdani also unveiled on Monday an updated guidance for Parks Department workers directing them to deny ICE agents access to city property unless they have a judicial arrest warrant.
Last month, Mamdani along with over a hundred New York elected officials sent a letter to the owners and operators of private parking lots, urging them to prevent ICE from using their lots.