ALBANY — During a pivotal discussion on Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul expressed to Tom Homan, President Trump’s border enforcement advisor, her firm opposition to expanding ICE operations within New York State.
“We are opposed to the establishment or enlargement of detention facilities in New York,” Hochul stated to the press, while she refrained from sharing specifics about Homan’s responses.
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The governor also indicated that their dialogue included the process of federal immigration officials apprehending individuals from New York jails.
“We discussed the procedures that take place once individuals have completed their sentences in our correctional facilities,” she explained.
This private meeting with Homan came on the heels of his discussions with Republican members of the state Assembly and Bruce Blakeman, the GOP candidate for governor and Nassau County Executive, on Thursday, according to insiders.
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 Hochul is still pushing to keep ICE from signing local agreements despite receiving reassurances, including directly from 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 widow this past week, said she demanded that Homan get the feds to provide visas for family members of the refugee still living in Myanmar.
Homan’s meeting with Republican lawmakers on 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 of 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 enforcement — 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.
