Mamdani Coaches Migrants in Spanish on Turning ICE Away After NYC Freed a Cop's Alleged Stabber

Zohran Mamdani, the socialist mayor of New York City, posted a 96-second video on Friday morning, speaking in Spanish with English subtitles, that walks people through how to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of their homes and away from them on the street. By evening it had passed 3 million views and 76,000 likes on the mayor's official account (@NYCMayor on 𝕏; Breitbart).

The timing is hard to miss. The same day, ICE's top officer in New York was on national television explaining how the city's sanctuary rules put two illegal aliens back on the street before they allegedly stabbed an off-duty NYPD detective in the Bronx (Fox News; ICE).

What the mayor told them

"If you encounter ICE, these are your rights," Mamdani says in the clip. "First, ICE cannot legally enter private spaces without a judicial order. These spaces include your home, hospitals, churches, and private areas of your workplace." He tells viewers to look for the words "United States District Court" and a judge's signature on any paper, and if there isn't one, to say they "do not consent" to entry (Breitbart).

"Second, you have the right to remain silent. If ICE stops you on the street, ask, 'Am I free to go?' If the agent says yes, walk away calmly," he continues, adding that people should speak with a lawyer before signing anything. "Third, you are not alone. Anyone can call the city's immigration legal support line" (Breitbart).

That door detail matters more than it sounds. Most ICE arrests run on administrative warrants signed by immigration officers, not federal judges. Telling people to hold out for a judge's signature is, in practice, a script for keeping deportation officers on the porch. The English caption on the post called it "what every New Yorker should know," but the mayor chose to record it in Spanish (@NYCMayor; Washington Examiner).

Why he did it now

The video caps a three-week fight that began on Oct. 8, when ICE agents in the Bronx's Marble Hill neighborhood shot Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old from the Dominican Republic. Federal officials say Belgal tried to drive his Honda CR-V into the agents. Officials also say he had two prior arrests in the city and ties to the Trinitarios gang (Washington Examiner; CNBC).

Mamdani took Belgal's side. He said the agents wore construction vests and masks and that "there was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents." He demanded that President Trump end ICE operations in the city, saying, "We want ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools, ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets" (Mediaite).

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said no. "We're not putting a pause on enforcement," he said the next morning. "I'm sorry, we're not. In fact, I'm not sorry" (CNBC). Border czar Tom Homan went further, telling Fox News that ICE isn't "going anywhere" no matter how much the mayor "screams and yells," and that a mayor has no power to throw ICE out of his city (Mediaite; Univision).

Homan also warned where this kind of talk leads. "You've got people like Mamdani and Hochul saying ICE isn't a real law enforcement agency, they call ICE racist and Nazis, so they have emboldened people not to comply with federal law enforcement," he said. "I said from day one, this hateful rhetoric is going to result in bloodshed" (Mediaite).

The detective the city didn't protect

On Oct. 2, NYPD Detective Jose Mercedes was unloading his car, off duty, at East 208th Street and Rochambeau Avenue when two men allegedly put a knife on him and grabbed two gold chains from his neck. He fought back and told them he was a cop. Prosecutors say he was stabbed 10 times. Sneider Mejia, 24, and D'Angelo Caraballo, 25, are now indicted for attempted murder and robbery (Bronx District Attorney).

Both men are illegal aliens from the Dominican Republic who crossed near San Luis, Arizona, in 2022 and 2023 and were released into the country under the Biden administration. An immigration judge ordered Mejia deported in May 2025. When the NYPD arrested him on a weapons charge that October, ICE asked the city to hold him. New York City declined. Caraballo's record includes an arrest for possessing a loaded gun (ICE; DHS).

"New York City's refusal to honor ICE detainers and its repeated release of removable aliens has grave and unacceptable consequences, including for the very law enforcement officers sworn to protect this city," said Kenneth Genalo, who runs ICE's New York City field office. On Friday he put it more bluntly: "These are crimes that should never have been committed by these individuals because they should've been in our custody" (ICE; ICE on 𝕏).

Where this goes

Mullin answered the day's news Friday night. "Every injury or death at the hands of an illegal alien is 100% preventable," he wrote. "Sanctuary politicians, like those in New York, bend over backwards to protect illegal alien criminals at the expense of their own constituents." He said DHS "will NEVER stop enforcing the law" (@SecMullinDHS).

Think of it like a homeowner who won't let the exterminator in, then hands out a pamphlet on hiding the mice. The mayor can't stop ICE from working his city, as Homan reminded him. What he can do is make every arrest slower, harder and more dangerous for the agents who have to make it, while the people the city's jails release keep showing up in the next police report (Univision; DHS).