Mamdani Hits Back at Trump DHS Chief Threatening Flights Over Immigration

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit back at Trump Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s threat to block international flights into cities like New York over immigration policy.

Mullin told Fox News this week that “we’re currently drawing up plans to say, listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local, radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their cities either because they don’t want us to enforce immigration.”

Mayor Mamdani was a guest on Thursday’s edition of MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, during which he told host Jen Psaki that “We will not be threatened” over immigration:

PSAKI: I’ve been dying to ask you about immigration. I mean, there have been, as you well know, big protests about the conditions at a detention center just across the river from your city in Newark, New Jersey. And in response to those protests, you’ve probably seen this, but just in case people who are watching haven’t seen it, I just wanted to play something that Trump’s secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin, said earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We’re currently drawing up plans to say, listen, these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren’t allowing us to — to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their into — into their cities either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: I mean, that — that is a very significant statement. I don’t have to tell you. New York’s JFK Airport processes more international flights than anywhere else in the country. What is your response to that threat from Secretary Mullin?

MAMDANI: You know, our laws and our values are not bargaining chips. We will not be threatened to leave so many of the New Yorkers who call this city home prey to these kinds of cruel policies. We are proud of the fact that we are a sanctuary city. We’re proud of that for a number of reasons.

One, it is a policy designed to keep New Yorkers safe. Two, we know that here in our city, we are proud of the more than 3 million New Yorkers who are immigrants. I’m one of them. And we know that in a city like this, it is incumbent upon us to live up to the ideals of the Statue of Liberty, not just tell people to come and look at it when they visit from across the world.

PSAKI: You speak to the president from — from time to time. You’ve spoken to him about his immigration policies in the past. You’ve even helped get a detainee in New York released. I’m curious, have you spoken to him since Markwayne Mullin made that announcement?

MAMDANI: No, I keep the cadence of our conversations private. But what I will say, Jen, is that when I’ve had those conversations with the president, I have made clear, as you’ve said, that I view ICE’s actions to be cruel and inhumane. These are not actions that serve any interest of public safety. And I say that time and again, because what I’ve seen as the mayor of New York City is an agency that is operating with impunity, whether across the five boroughs of New York or whether elsewhere across the country. And so often New Yorkers have no idea as to what could put them at risk beyond just the simple fact of their existence in this city.

Watch above via MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.

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