New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Sunday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should stop operating in New York City entirely, pointing to a video of agents firing at a moving vehicle in broad daylight.
Speaking on MS NOW’s “Connect,” Mamdani described the incident in stark terms. “We are talking about a federal agency that shot at a moving vehicle in broad daylight while its agents were wearing construction vests, using long guns, and left New Yorkers in terror,” he said. “That is, as you’ve said, the same experience that so many have had anywhere across this country whenever it comes to ICE.”
Mamdani argued the agency’s tactics undermine basic law enforcement norms. “I think that what they have shown, time and again, is that they view the law as a suggestion,” he said. “There is a reason why the NYPD would not be shooting at a moving vehicle. There is a reason why law enforcement agents are supposed to wear identifiable information and uniforms.”
He said the footage left onlookers confused about what they were witnessing. “What you could see in that video, and in the videos that have been released since, is people, bystanders outside, unsure as to what they were even seeing, because in that imagery, it feels as if you’re almost looking at a mass shooter, as opposed to seeing someone who’s purportedly representing a federal agency,” Mamdani said.
The mayor said he has raised his concerns directly with federal officials. “It begins with calls to the president and then to the secretary, and in those calls I make very clear, as I’ve shared with the president before, which is that I’m immensely concerned about public safety in our city,” he said. “It is one of our top priorities. And it is from that concern that I believe that ICE should not be in this city at all, that it should frankly, not even be an agency that exists, because what we see from their actions is an agency that terrorizes, one that creates a sense of fear as opposed to any idea of safety.”
