America's Talking - NYC Mayor Adams Ready to Work With Republicans on Border-Related Crime

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

(The Center Square) – After blaming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for over a year for illegal border crossers inundating New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday he now welcomes federal help to remove criminals in the city who are illegally in the country. After meeting with President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, Adams held a news conference expressing his support for Homan’s efforts. When asked if Homan requested help from the city to target the most violent criminals illegally in the country, Adams said his goal “is clearly again with my target area.” Adams, a Democrat, said his goal aligned with Homan’s to improve public safety and reduce crime. Homan’s focus is on removing the most violent offenders first, The Center Square reported. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. President-elect Donald Trump's new border czar, Tom Homan, has been making the rounds this week, stopping in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions to gain support for his and Trump's plan to deport violent criminal migrants in the U.S. illegally. He visited both the sanctuary cities of Chicago, and New York this week, and in New York, he gained the support of the city's Democratic mayor,

Eric Adams. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, not everyone supports the deportation plan, but it seems like more and more officials, including some Democrats, are getting on board. Tell us. Yeah, I mean, we're seeing some rare bipartisanship supporting what many thought would probably be a more controversial aspect of Trump's plan upon taking office. So this mass deportation, Trump was attacked for it on the campaign trail, but he, you know, won so handily that he has the moral authority to give it a shot now. So the, what's interesting, I think, on this issue is what you alluded to is that many who opposed, you know, building the wall or mass deportation or cracking down on the border, it was kind of all a hypothetical argument.

I mean, illegal immigration was sort of like foreign policy in the sense that, you know, you might have feelings about it. but in a lot of ways it didn't impact your daily life. But now immigration has become an issue for many of these big cities in particular. You mentioned New York City Mayor Adams. It's become a daily reality. It's become an expensive reality. Adams is a great example of one of the cities that's dealing with the crime consequences of having so many migrants, the human services problems, the effects on housing.

In Chicago, we've seen a lot of. For instance, you know, inner city, you know, black Americans complaining that migrants are getting a lot more, you know, more benefits, more care, more even handouts from the government that, you know, in generous programs than anybody, right? So it's interesting to see, like, the dynamic changes cities grapple with the reality of these border policies. Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, did not meet with Homan when he was in, uh, in the city. earlier this week. He has not indicated support for the plan, but Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said he does support the President L.X. plan to deport criminal illegal aliens in the country illegally, but not other migrants in the U.S. illegally. He said he would protect the non-criminal violence and protect them against any deportation efforts.

But President-elect Trump and Homan themselves has said, the first people they're going to target for deportation are those violent people in the country illegally, and also those from terror-sponsoring countries such as Iran, Venezuela, countries like that. It would seem that that would make sense that both parties can get behind that, don't you think? Yeah, it would seem that that would make sense. And I think, but, you know, in some ways, that might just be what the Democrats have to say to save their own, you know, political ambitions. But once Trump gets in there, once homie gets in there with the agents, they set up camp and start going through and deporting people. I'm not sure you can really stop them.

All the power that these mayors have would be in totally preventing, you know, feds from coming into the city at all. But once they have set up operations, I mean, how is Pritzker, for example, going to very? that the immigrants are, you know, quote, a criminal, right? And who defines what, you know, a criminal, how criminal do you have to be to get deported by the Trump administration, right? That's a very, it's a judgment call. And then how much proof does there have to be, you know, if you're accused, if you're

charged, you have to be convicted, you know, from the Trump, from Holman and in Trump's perspective, they're all criminals because they did break the law by coming into the U.S. Now, I don't understand what they're saying. They're going to focus on violent criminals and all that. And there's plenty of work. to be done there. But once we get past that stage, I'm not sure that these Democratic leaders can take back the access they gave to Trump. And Trump's going to be in these cities. He's going to know where the migrants are in these early stages of research and finding these people. And so

then it'll just become a question of judgment call and the political will of both sides to whether this is really going to happen. And Holman, the president-elect's new incoming borders are in an exclusive interview with the center square. He told us that, these so-called sanctuary cities, sanctuary states. Illinois, for example, is a sanctuary state. State law prevents the law enforcement community from cooperating with immigration and customs agents, for example, to turn over illegal aliens to them for deportation. Homan has said that violates federal law, and he and President Trump will not put up with it that if they have to, they'll go after local state officials who do not cooperate

ICE as part of their deportation plan. Now, that's taken another step. What do you think about those threats? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of violating federal law to go around on this issue. I mean, the federal government and federal officials have been violating federal law for years under the Biden administration by refusing to enforce the law that they're paid to enforce. I mean, they've, you made some slight administrative changes, but you could definitely make the argument that the federal government, federal officials violated the law by not enforcing the laws, the immigration laws that Congress put on the books, right, purposely dragging their feet, you know, just not doing it. So that's not new. And these mayors and different local leaders are not, you know, unique in that.

I think that's the Democratic MO on this issue. Because for all Democrats talk about we need to pass a bill on immigration reform, all the bills are pretty much on, have become law that need to become law on this issue. I mean, you could say we need more border funding, and they probably do need more funding for the border. But as far as the laws to catch, deport people, you know, Trump had remained in Mexico, which almost single-handedly solved most of this issue. All these things were easily done without a new law. And that's, that was really the, the deception that Democrats were pushing during the campaign. So all the laws are in the books.

If he does go after these people, and that, it's hard to predict any, the political impact of anything in this new cycle, in this new Trump land, where he does, you know, sometimes the more controversially is,

the more people love him or the better he turns out in the end. I don't think these Democratic mayors are very well loved nationally. Maybe they're popular in their own towns and their own cities. I don't doubt that. But generally,

they're kind of, in the rest of America, especially to Republicans, they're part of these boogeymen who are kind of ruined in the country, this handful of Democratic leaders like Schumer and Pelosi and all the rest, who have somehow held back the will of the American people and a president Trump who was elected with the popular vote and pretty much a landslide victory. So I think it depends on how his tone, his rhetoric, if he really tries to put him in jail, he's definitely getting some pushback. But politically, I think people are pretty fed up on this issue and they want to see more aggressive stance.

Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.