New York City mayoral candidates condemn immigration raid

NEW YORK: In a rare moment of agreement, the three candidates vying to be mayor of New York City all denounced on Wednesday a federal immigration raid that targeted street vendors.

The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents detained nine “illegal aliens” on Tuesday on suspicion of various crimes, including selling counterfeit goods.

In the second and final debate of the mayoral race, Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani slammed the department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit as “a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve.”

His adversaries, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, both argued that any crackdowns on counterfeit sales should be conducted by the city’s police, not federal agents.

Cuomo, 67, said such work is “a basic policing function” for local officials.

Sliwa, 71, agreed, saying “the feds should not have stepped into this situation.”

Cuomo added that if he had been the city’s mayor, he would have called US President Donald Trump — who initiated the crackdowns across the country — to tell him he was out of bounds.

Trump, a native New Yorker who has never won an election in his own state, has frequently sounded off on the mayoral race in the nation’s largest city, calling Mamdani a “communist.”

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters the next mayor will have to “go through the White House.”

New Yorkers responded to the federal immigration raid with protests on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.

“It’s really important to show solidarity for our neighbors who are being targeted by what is increasingly an authoritarian and corrupt state,” Emma Ehrlich, a 37-year-old protester, told AFP.

“We value immigrants, whether they’re documented or undocumented. They contribute so much to this city,” she added.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James, a staunch opponent of Trump’s, called on the public to provide information, photos and videos about ICE activities in the city.

The New York City Council and religious leaders plan to hold a press conference Thursday, calling on the president not to send National Guard troops as he has done in other major Democratic cities, including Portland, Chicago, Washington, Memphis and Los Angeles.

Voting in New York’s mayoral race begins Saturday.