Border czar Tom Homan fired back at New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both Democrats, following an ICE shooting in the Bronx, accusing the two leaders of “emboldening” people to resist federal agents.
Homan joined Kayleigh McEnany on Fox News’ “Saturday in America,” where he addressed this week’s shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal.
Belgal, who had his 5-year-old son in the car when he was shot, has since been discharged from the hospital and sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to The New York Times.
Homan said Belgal, who is from the Dominican Republic, “tried to run an officer over” with his car and alleged he was not complying with lawful orders.
Mamdani, however, offered a different account after the shooting, claiming Belgal had no way of identifying the ICE agents.
“Here’s what we know. ICE agents surrounded the man’s vehicle before opening fire. They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces. There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents,” the mayor said.
Homan laid the blame for the shooting on what he called Mamdani and Hochul’s “sanctuary city policies.”
He argued that if the governor and mayor cooperated with ICE and allowed agents access to their jails, arrests could be carried out more peacefully and simply.
Instead, Homan said, the city and state “released them back on the street to recommit crimes against the citizens of that city and state.”
“If we would have had access to him when he was originally arrested by NYPD, none of this would have happened,” Homan said.
McEnany then played a clip of Mamdani accusing ICE of terrorizing New York.
“We want ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools, ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets. We want that because we want to keep the city safe. We do not need them to do so. All they do is terrorize the city!” the mayor said.
Homan had a direct message for Mamdani in response, vowing that ICE agents are not “going anywhere” no matter how much the mayor “screams and yells.”
The border czar went further, accusing both Hochul and Mamdani of using rhetoric that “emboldens” resistance to ICE and puts officers in dangerous situations.
“People don’t want to comply with ICE. Why? You’ve got people like Mamdani and Hochul saying ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency, they call ICE racist and Nazis, so they have emboldened people not to comply with federal law enforcement,” Homan said.
He said he had warned about the consequences from the start.
“I said from day one, this hateful rhetoric is going to result in bloodshed,” Homan said. “It’s sad, it’s unfortunate. I don’t want see any bloodshed. I don’t want to see any tragedies.”
Homan argued the rhetoric sends a dangerous message to a fringe segment of the population.
“But this hateful rhetoric convinces that small percentage of crazies on the left it’s okay to not comply. It’s okay to put hands on an ICE officer, it’s okay to try to run him over, and it’s not,” he said.
He closed with a defense of the agency’s officers: “The men and women of ICE are patriots.”
