With less than three weeks to go before the Democratic primaries in New York City on June 24, the nine top mayoral candidates clashed on Wednesday evening during a live, televised debate. Among the issues that received the most attention was immigration, with the candidates asked to explain how they would each respond to President Trump’s immigration policies. It was among the few times that the two frontrunners, Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, have shared a stage.
Both said they would fight the Trump administration, with Mamdani stating he would tax the 1% and the wealthiest corporations to fund services whose funding Trump may threaten. Cuomo said that his experience working with, and being up against, Trump during his time as governor of New York made him the best-equipped for the job.
In a marked change from his initial position on the matter, Cuomo advocated for detained Palestinian student leader Mahmoud Khalil’s release, even as he said he would go to Israel on his first foreign visit as mayor and wore a yellow ribbon at the debate to express his solidarity with Israeli hostages. Mamdani was the only candidate on stage who was pressed by the moderators on whether he “believed in a Jewish state of Israel.” He responded that Israel has a right to exist, as a state with equal rights (for all people).
Though each of the nine candidates on stage expressed their strident opposition to Trump, there were differences in the positions they took and measures they proposed to combat the federal government’s actions.
Combating Trump
In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have stepped up their actions in New York, arresting individuals who were showing up for their appointments at various immigration courts in the city. Addressing these arrests, city council speaker and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams told the debate, “Donald Trump’s ICE has no place pulling out people that are taking their legal court dates — no right, not in my New York.”
Cuomo, who is currently leading in the polls, said of Trump, “I fought him on ICE — this is not the first time he has brought ICE to New York; he’s done that before, and we fought him and we won.”
Mamdani, Cuomo’s closest challenger according to polls and the recipient of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement post-debate, said, “Our city is under attack by an authoritarian Trump administration.” He reminded viewers that a sitting elected official, Republican city councilwoman Vickie Paladino, had demanded on Monday that Mamdani, a naturalized U.S. citizen and state assemblyman, be deported himself.
A Consensus on Mahmoud Khalil
All nine candidates at the Democratic mayoral debate spoke in favor of Khalil being released from immigration detention.
In March, Cuomo had issued a statement in response to Khalil’s arrest three days after he was detained, in which he had accused campus protesters of harassing Jewish students. A day later, he had followed it up by saying, “The antisemitic agitators at Columbia University & on campuses across the country have gone unchecked for too long.”
Yet, at the debate, Cuomo struck a different tone. Commenting on Khalil’s detention, he said, “This is a continuation of Trump eroding democracy, chipping away at due process. He should be released immediately; he shouldn’t have been detained in the first place.”
Mamdani said, “It is another example of Donald Trump weaponizing the very real issue of antisemitism to then throw Palestinian New Yorkers into detention facilities and not even tell us what the crime is that they’re charged with.”
City comptroller Brad Lander said, “Mahmoud Khalil should be at home with his family, and so should Dylan Contreras, a NYC public high school student that ICE tricked and then arrested and is trying to deport. We’ve got to stand up, make sure folks have legal services and that New York City has their back.”
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The only candidate on stage who seemed somewhat reluctant in his decision to support Khalil’s release was former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson. Asked whether Khalil should be set free or deported, Tilson said, “I can’t answer the question without knowing all the facts right now.” Even as the other candidates began objecting to Tilson’s comment, he added, “It certainly looks like another case of Trump administration overreach. They need to prove their case and show that he has ties to terrorism; that would justify, via due process, revoking his green card and deporting him. I don’t think the Trump administration will be able to do that, and therefore, he should be set free.”
E-bike Tickets as ‘Breadcrumbs for ICE’
State Senator Jessica Ramos criticized recent changes in e-bike traffic regulations. “A lot of enforcement has now changed from civil summonses to criminal tickets, and that is leaving breadcrumbs for ICE and many of our community members vulnerable,” she said.
Michael Blake, former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and former New York state assemblyman, echoed a similar sentiment, saying that an increase in people getting tickets for e-bike violations would “lead to the harassment of more communities of color and immigrants in particular.”
Rikers Island and ICE
Adrienne Adams cited her track record in opposing a recent move by the city administration to allow ICE back on Rikers Island, where NYC’s largest jail is housed. Adams and the New York City Council sued incumbent Mayor Eric Adams over the move, “New York will win,” Adams said. (In late April, a New York State Supreme Court extended a temporary restraining order blocking ICE from operating an office on Rikers.)
Safe Havens, and Warnings
Rosarina Breton, Telemundo 47 anchor and one of the four hosts of the debate, posed the following hypothetical scenario to the candidates: ICE notifies city-run hospitals that they must stop offering medical care to undocumented patients, else the federal government will withhold millions of dollars in funding. What would the candidates do in such a situation?
Cuomo replied, “You cannot give in to Mr. Trump and his demands. He is a bully; if you give in to him today, you will be giving him your lunch money for the rest of your life.” The former governor added that there is a need for a national coalition of like-minded states and cities to oppose such actions.
Mamdani responded to the scenario by saying that local institutions must continue to provide services to each and every New Yorker. He added that he would blunt out the threats of funding cuts by Trump by “taxing the 1% and the wealthiest corporations” in New York.
Former comptroller Scott Stringer said that a rainy day fund he has proposed would allow the city to build back the health services that the federal government could financially endanger.
Blake began his response by stating that he is a son of Jamaican immigrants and added that as mayor, he would designate hospitals, schools, community centers, and places of worship as safe havens where ICE is not permitted to enter unless they have a signed judicial warrant.
But what if ICE was planning to round up immigrants outside city-run hospitals, would the candidates warn immigrants, Breton asked.
State senator Zellnor Myrie, son of Costa Rican immigrants who were undocumented at the time of his birth, said this was more than just a hypothetical for him. “I grew up with pretty severe asthma, and both of my parents would take me to a city hospital when I had an asthma attack. They weren’t documented then, but they knew that the city had their back,” said Myrie. So, he added, not only would he be warning immigrants, he would be assuring them that he had their back, too.
Lander said that he would have city employees trained to understand the city’s sanctuary laws, thereby building “a network to get this information out and absolutely warn people before they walk into ICE.”
Ramos said she would limit the NYPD’s cooperation with ICE to “very serious charges,” as per existing sanctuary city laws. Immigrants were part of the fabric of the city and the country, she stressed, and the future of New York City and the United States “won’t be brighter without our immigrants.”
