Trump’s border czar to target sanctuary cities in US: ‘We’re gonna flood the zone’

The Trump administration is targeting sanctuary cities in the next phase of its deportation drive after labelling them “sanctuaries for criminals” following the shooting of an off-duty law enforcement officer in New York City, allegedly by an undocumented person with a criminal record.

Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline border czar, vowed to “flood the zone” with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in an all-out bid to overcome the lack of cooperation he said the government faced from Democrat-run municipalities in its quest to arrest and detain undocumented people.

His pledge followed the arrest of two undocumented men from the Dominican Republic after a Customs and Border Protection officer suffered gunshot wounds to the arm and face in an apparent robbery attempt in New York’s Riverside park on Saturday night.

New York is one of several self-designated “sanctuary cities” across the US, called so because the mayors and local councils have prevented law officers under their control from collaborating with federal immigration officers working on Trump’s mass deportation scheme.

Homan – who has previously threatened to arrest mayors if they impede Ice’s arrest efforts – said without evidence: “Every sanctuary city is unsafe. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals and President Trump’s not going to tolerate it.

“I’m going to work very hard … to keep President Trump’s promise and his commitment several weeks ago that sanctuary cities are now our priority. We’re going to flood the zone.

“What we’re going to do [is deploy] more agents in New York City to look for that bad guy so sanctuary cities get exactly what they don’t want – more agents in the community and more agents in the worksite.

“If we can’t arrest that bad guy in the safety and security of the county jail, we’ll arrest him in the community. And when we arrest him in the community, if he’s with others that are in the country illegally, they are coming too.”

Homan’s comments came at a news conference fronted by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, focusing on the incident in New York, which left the unnamed customs and border protection officer in hospital.

The 42-year-old agent was off duty and sitting with a female companion when he was reportedly approached by two men on a scooter shortly before midnight. The officer was not in uniform and police said there was no indication that he was targeted because of his occupation.

An exchange of gunfire ensued when the officer withdrew his service weapon, apparently in self-defense.

A suspect, Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, was later taken in to custody after turning up at a hospital in the Bronx with gunshot wounds to the leg and groin.

Noem claimed the episode was a direct result of the sanctuary city policy adopted by New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, as well as the approach to border security adopted during Joe Biden’s presidency.

“Make no mistake, this officer is in the hospital today, fighting for his life, because of the policies of the mayor of the city and the city council and the people that were in charge of keeping the public safe, they refused to do so,” she said. (There is no evidence to support that sanctuary city policies make cities less safe, and in fact, may actually bolster public safety.)

The criticism of Adams came despite widespread reports of a deal made between him and the Trump administration that involved New York giving greater cooperation than before on immigration. The agreement was reached as the justice department moved to dismiss federal corruption charges against Adams, although the mayor has insisted there was no quid pro quo.

Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles have also suffered crime waves through sanctuary city policies, according to Noem. In reality, the cities largely followed national crime trends that peaked during the pandemic and have since declined.

“We look at Mayor [Michelle] Wu in Boston and what has happened there under her watch,” she said. “What’s happened in LA with the riots and the violence and the protest that have gone on because of Mayor [Karen] Bass and what she has perpetuated.

“When you look at Mayor [Brandon] Johnson in Chicago, and how devastating it is to live in that city and some of those poorest communities, how they suffer every single day with the violence that’s in front of them. Just because these individuals are protecting criminals.”

She also highlighted Nunez – who she said had been arrested four times since entering the US illegally in 2023 – as well as his accomplice, Christhian Aybar-Berroa, saying he had “entered the country illegally in 2022 under the Biden administration and was ordered for final removal in 2023 by an immigration judge.

“There’s absolutely zero reason that someone who is scum of the earth like this should be running loose on the streets of New York City,” Noem said, referring to Nunez. “Arrested four different times in New York City and because of the mayor’s policies and was released back to do harm to people and to individuals living in the city.”

Homan criticised media reports suggesting that the majority of those detained were not criminals.

“I look at the numbers every day,” he said. “The numbers I looked at [are] 130,000 arrests and 90,000 criminals. Do the math. That’s 70%. Others are those who have final orders, who had due process at great taxpayer expense. A federal judge ordered them removed. Ice’s job is to remove them.”

Others were national security threats, he said, although undocumented people have been largely found to commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.

“Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, they’ve arrested several hundred Iranian nationals, national security threats. They may not have a criminal conviction, but they need to be detained. They need to be arrested and taken off the streets of this country.”