NEW YORK — With a newfound leverage over New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Trump border czar Tom Homan hosted the big-city Democrat on Thursday to discuss ramped-up immigration enforcement in the nation’s largest city.
The sit-down is the first mile marker in a new and precarious era in Adams’ political career. With each nudge toward more deportations from Trump officials — who hold the fate of the mayor’s criminal case in their hands — Adams gets farther from his Democratic political base as he seeks reelection in June.
Meeting at ICE Field Office
On Thursday, Adams arrived at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in lower Manhattan for his second meeting in the last two months with Homan, who recently expressed dissatisfaction with the mayor’s delivery on promises from their first confab.
That sentiment was confirmed by a group of New York City Council members who convened with the border czar immediately beforehand.
“[Homan] said that he’s going to hold the mayor responsible for things he said [during] the last meeting they had that he didn’t deliver on,” Council Member Robert Holden said at a press briefing outside the federal building, adding that Homan said there would be consequences if the mayor did not comply. The Trump official did not, however, mention the mayor’s criminal case, according to Holden.
During a housing event Thursday morning, the mayor declined to take questions about the pending Homan meeting. After the sit-down with the border czar, the mayor was whisked away from the federal building without addressing a crowd of gathered press.
DOJ's Move to Dismiss Bribery Case
Thursday’s tête-à-tête was the first since Department of Justice officials moved to dismiss Adams’ five-count bribery case — with a significant asterisk.
In a memo to the Manhattan prosecutors who brought the case, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote Monday the charges were impeding Adams’ ability to support the White House’s immigration agenda and were hampering his reelection run. He directed the prosecutors to dismiss the case, a move that would need to be approved by a judge. On Thursday, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who had been charging forward with the prosecution, resigned.
Bove left open the possibility of reviving the case after the November 2025 election, giving Trump officials tremendous leverage over Adams at a time when they are seeking major concessions from blue states and cities with “sanctuary city” laws.
Implications for Adams' Reelection Campaign
That dynamic was not lost on the mayor’s political rivals and top Democrats in Washington.
“Translation: It is the intention of the Trump administration to keep the current mayor on a short leash,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, told reporters Thursday. “How the mayor responds to the White House’s intentions is going to determine a lot about the political future of the current mayor of the city of New York.”
Before Thursday’s meeting, Adams and Homan struck a collaborative tone.
The mayor hosted Trump’s border czar at Gracie Mansion in December where the two committed to ridding the city of undocumented immigrants who had committed crimes. Adams floated reopening an ICE office on Rikers Island, the city’s main jail facility, and said his team would work with Homan’s to potentially craft executive orders altering the city’s “sanctuary city” laws.
How far Homan will push Adams and how the mayor responds stands to have profound effects on his reelection campaign. Holden, the council member who met with the border czar Thursday, said Homan was solely focused on deporting undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.
Challenges Ahead for Mayor Adams
The mayor will also have to address numerous contentious actions of the Trump administration despite pledging to never publicly criticize the commander-in-chief. Case in point: The day before his meeting with Homan, the Trump administration clawed $80 million in FEMA money out of a city bank account.
“He has a DOJ memo that explicitly lays out a quid pro quo: ‘Do what we want on immigration, and we will make sure that you’re OK,’” state Sen. Zellnor Myrie said Thursday. “That’s a dangerous place for this city to be in no matter what you think of this mayor, no matter what you think of this President. Our sovereignty as a city has been compromised.”
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