US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is utilizing Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory to recruit police officers to depart the New York Police Department.
On Friday, ICE posted a recruitment message to social media calling on police officers to “Defend the Homeland” and “work for a President and a Secretary who support and defend law enforcement—not defund or demonize it.”
ICE’s message references Mamdani’s historical past of police criticism, together with his previous assist for defunding the NYPD. In June 2020, Mamdani posted on X: “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
NCS has reached out to Mamdani’s transition crew for remark.
Mamdani has additionally beforehand accused the NYPD of worldwide corruption and collaboration with the state of Israel. In a 2023 clip Mamdani stated, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” In October, he told NCS he was referencing coaching techniques, and didn’t really consider the NYPD was actively working with the IDF.
In the closing months of his marketing campaign, Mamdani made a concerted effort to succeed in out to regulation enforcement and backtrack from his earlier stances. He additionally dedicated to retaining present Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
“I am not defunding the police. I am not running to defund the police,” Mamdani told reporters in August. Mamdani additionally publicly apologized to New York police officers, strolling again previous feedback calling them “racist,” “wicked” and “corrupt.”
Mamdani has been a vocal critic of ICE, telling NCS he wouldn’t enable the NYPD to interact or cooperate with ICE on civil immigration enforcement.
ICE’s makes an attempt to rent NYPD officers are the newest efforts from the Department of Homeland Security to hire thousands more deportation officers after receiving $75 billion in federal funding from Trump’s sweeping agenda bill this summer time.