{"id":46560,"date":"2025-11-20T21:27:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/46560\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T21:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:27:05","slug":"the-nypd-is-barred-from-coordination-with-ice-but-some-think-cops-should-actively-intervene-to-stop-immigration-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/46560\/","title":{"rendered":"The NYPD is barred from coordination with ICE, but some think cops should actively intervene to stop immigration agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

The swarming<\/a> of federal agents on Manhattan\u2019s busy Canal Street last month quickly became a preview of what President Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation initiative could look like in New York City. But a smaller Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Washington Heights last week exposed a \u201cdangerous gap\u201d between the local and federal government that could continue to impact how the arrests play out on the city\u2019s streets, multiple experts and former officials told City & State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Masked plainclothes federal agents descended upon the Upper Manhattan neighborhood Wednesday morning, making at least one arrest. Residents called 911 to ask the NYPD to intervene, reporting armed men pulling people out of cars. The NYPD responded to the call, witnessing a group of people chasing someone in the neighborhood, according to the NYPD. The police officers stepped in until they realized that the people targeting residents \u2013 chasing and pulling some out of cars \u2013 were in fact Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents. The scuffle left two NYPD officers with minor injuries, according to the NYPD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s sanctuary city laws prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal agents on immigration-related detainment, but the laws don\u2019t prohibit communication. The confusion on Wednesday signals that without communication between local and federal authorities, the arrests and raids could become chaotic and dangerous, for both local residents and local authorities. That communication, however, may become more strained if Trump follows through on his renewed threats<\/a> to target New York City with the deployment of federal agents once Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFundamentally \u2026 the feds have to be willing to have some kind of sensible operating structure,\u201d said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the President Joe Biden administration. \u201cWhat I’d be worried about if I were a city official, is \u2026 I don’t think it’s any secret that the White House would love to have an enemy in New York to fight against.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the controversial immigration enforcement raid on Canal Street last month, the federal government did show signs of this \u201coperating structure,\u201d communicating with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch before its agents fanned out on the street to arrest nearly a dozen undocumented street vendors, according to reporting by the Daily News<\/a>. The call allowed Tisch to direct NYPD officers to steer clear of the area as the federal agents carried out the raid. While the advance notice was in line with the city\u2019s sanctuary laws, it drew criticism from anti-ICE Mamdani supporters as the mayor-elect has said he plans to keep Tisch on as police commissioner come January.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani, however, signaled a departure from Tisch\u2019s approach the day after his election earlier this month. He seemed to support a more interventionist NYPD as he vowed<\/a> in a message to ICE that \u201ceveryone will be held to the same standard of the law.\u201d Tisch has agreed to remain in her post once Mamdani takes office, she announced<\/a> in an internal-memo Wednesday. Mamdani\u2019s team did not respond to questions from City & State about the mayor-elect\u2019s stance on how the NYPD should interact with federal immigration enforcement officers. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve shared with the commissioner and what I\u2019ve also shared publicly, is the fact that we can never go back to the days where Eric Adams would go on national television, open the door to the NYPD handling civil immigration enforcement,\u201d Mamdani told<\/a> Pix11\u2019s Dan Mannarino on Wednesday. \u201cI want (Tisch) to assure that no officers are assisting with the actions of ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Rep. Dan Goldman formally called on the NYPD to arrest federal agents if they violate local law while carrying out Trump\u2019s mass deportation initiative in New York City. The Congress member, who represents parts of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, made the request in a letter sent to Tisch on Oct. 16. Goldman told City & State Tisch did not respond to his letter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Goldman, who praised<\/a> the NYPD for responding to the \u201clegitimate 911 call\u201d on Wednesday,\u00a0 said in an interview that the instance demonstrates that New York must change its sanctuary city laws to empower the NYPD to intervene during ICE operations and protect New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is for the NYPD to change its approach,\u201d Goldman said, arguing that NYPD should be allowed to legally \u201cintervene to protect New Yorkers from the lawlessness that ICE is repeatedly and consistently demonstrating as part of Donald Trump’s fascist immigration dragnet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Molly Bilken, interim legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that the chaos of the ICE arrests in Washington Heights on Wednesday proves even further that sanctuary city laws are necessary for safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are very important reasons for the NYPD not to get involved with ICE’s dragnet,\u201d Bilken said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two retired NYPD officers and current professors at John Jay College of Criminal Justice also disagreed on who the NYPD should align with in moments of chaos during ICE arrests \u2013 fellow law enforcement or fellow New Yorkers?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Micheal Alcazar, retired NYPD detective and professor at John Jay, said that if ICE agents are using excessive force or violating rights, NYPD \u201cshould be able to protect civilians.\u201d Jillian Snider, retired police officer and adjunct lecturer at John Jay, said that although the NYPD legally cannot intervene, in moments of chaos \u201claw enforcement has to still stick together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s scuffle also comes after ICE targeted NYPD officers to join the federal enforcement agency in recently released social media ads. \u201cJoin an agency that respects you, your family and your commitment to serving in law enforcement,\u201d reads the ad, posted on ICE\u2019s official social media accounts, suggesting that the NYPD does not respect its officers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, reinforced this sentiment in a statement following the arrests last week, criticizing Council Member Shaun Abreu, who represents the Washington Heights neighborhood, for condemning the ICE presence. “Council Member Shaun Abreu should stop fearmongering and smearing our brave law enforcement who are facing 1000% increase in assaults against them and an nearly 8000% increase in death threats,” McLaughlin wrote and Gothamist reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Tisch will soon serve in Mamdani\u2019s administration, the debate over how local law enforcement can and should operate during federal immigration enforcement will be an important test. The mayor-elect is balancing committing to his campaign promises and ensuring that the raids do not result in chaos or danger, like the one last Wednesday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lily Burd, a Washington Heights parent who lives near the site of the arrests, said that her community is both hopeful and wary of Mamdani\u2019s ability to keep their neighborhood, which has seen increased targeting by ICE, safe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he won, his statement of \u2018if you’re going to get through any one of us, you have to get through all of us,\u2019 that means so much to so many people,\u201d Burd said. \u201cAnd also we’re all really scared of what the federal government is going to do when he takes office on Jan. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The swarming of federal agents on Manhattan\u2019s busy Canal Street last month quickly became a preview of what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,2301,9,24,2327,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-46560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-immigration","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news-politics","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}