Mamdani declares ICE should be abolished, vows to uphold NYC ‘sanctuary’ policies

"I am in support of abolishing ICE, and I'll tell you why," Mamdani said to the applause of the View's audience. "What we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead, what it's doing is terrorizing people, no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case."

"And I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life. What we need to see is humanity, and there is a way to care about immigration in this city and in this country with a sense of humanity. What we're seeing from ICE is not it, and we have not seen that from them in a long, long time," Mamdani added.

He went on to claim that the immigration raids that have been carried out by ICE "rip" apart New York City. “We are talking about people whose crimes simply seem to be being in New York City and if they make good on this threat and would rip the civic fabric of the city apart," Mamdani claimed.

This is in contrast to what the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security have said about ICE arrests, that around 70 percent of those taken into ICE custody have been convicted or charged with a crime aside from crossing the border illegally.

He doubled down on the talking point that the shooting of Renee Good was "murder" and said he would be upholding "sanctuary city" laws in the Big Apple, even as the Trump administration has talked about cutting funds to the city. “What I’ve said is that our values and our laws — they’re not bargaining chips,” he said.