NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is threatening legal action if ICE continues to use parking lots owned by the city to stage operations.
Since July, ICE agents have gathered at city-owned parking lots in Queens and the Bronx, including one next to a preschool, the mayor’s letter to the Trump administration alleges.
ICE agents “reportedly parked their vehicles and conducted meetings” in a city-owned lot at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, as well as a lot on 111th Street near Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, next to a city-run preschool and the New York Hall of Science.
As a result, the city issued guidelines to Parks Department employees to deny ICE officers entry into lots and areas that are not public unless the agents have a judicial warrant, while instructing them to notify city lawyers and not to “engage in physical or verbal altercations” with them.
“ICE has no right to use our property as a base for tearing families apart. That applies to every park and lot this City owns. This unauthorized use of City property must end now,” the mayor said. “Today, I’m telling DHS to order its agents off our lots. If they keep coming back, we will see them in court.”
The Department of Homeland Security responded with this statement:
“ICE’s presence in public parking lots is fully authorized under federal law and is a standard practice for law enforcement agencies nationwide. Mayor Mamdani should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of NYC since he won’t.”
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