New York prepares for Trump immigration crackdown

New York’s political and civic leaders have been quietly preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump will follow through on these threats to deploy federal troops and immigration agents to the city. Their efforts took on added urgency on Wednesday morning after the mayoral win of Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whom Trump has sought to elevate into his new political foil. The preparations — among activists, business leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office — have included private meetings to discuss lawsuits, the formation of rapid-response groups and multiple phone calls with the New Yorkers’ counterparts in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.
The backroom mobilisation comes at an especially fraught time in the city and is the first test of a key question: Will Trump try to turn New York, his hometown and a place where he retains property and political allies, into another urban battleground over federal power? Or could his deep ties to New York businesspeople and real estate developers help prevent, or at least curb, an aggressive federal incursion into the city’s affairs? Jackie Bray, one of Hochul’s top advisers, has led much of the state planning, peppering officials in other cities with questions to craft New York’s response. And leaders from New York City’s real estate and business sectors are planning to meet again next week, at Hochul’s request.
Kathryn S. Wylde, the CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents much of the city’s corporate leadership, said that she had spoken with her counterparts in San Francisco, where business executives persuaded Trump not to send in federal agents last month. “We certainly have taken note and discussed with San Francisco their successful strategy,” Wylde said.
The planning efforts, parts of which were reported by Politico on Thursday, accelerated last month after a raid on Canal Street in lower Manhattan that led to nine arrests. The raid was supposed to include more than 100 agents but was scaled back at the last minute, according to three people familiar with its planning.

On Thursday, a Trump administration official said that the president was invested in New York’s success but had no confidence in Mamdani’s ability to lead the city. Trump officials are exploring ways to curtail federal funding to the city and have begun discussing what an immigration enforcement operation in New York would look like, should Trump order one, the official said. “President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of all New Yorkers,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “This shouldn’t be controversial, even for a communist, though we won’t get ahead of the president on any potential announcements.”
In August, not long after federal agents descended on Los Angeles, Trump publicly mused about whether to send federal troops to Chicago or New York next. He settled on Chicago, where he launched a large immigration enforcement operation in September that has been defined by aggressive tactics and citizen pushback. Bray quickly added Illinois to her call list. She quizzed officials there on how they confronted Trump’s federalisation of the National Guard; how the local police navigated a surge in federal agents on city streets; and how they handled protests prompted by raids in neighbourhoods and workplaces.
Bray said New York would probably follow the lead of other Democratic states and sue the Trump administration if it tried to deploy the National Guard there. And Letitia James, the state attorney general, has been working on a legal strategy, a person familiar with the effort said. The focus, Bray said, was on preparing local and state police forces for the likelihood that federal agencies would cut off communication with them if deployed to New York.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has warned against the deployment of the National Guard, saying that crime is under control and that it “would send the wrong message.” Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, also spoke out in September: “As a lifelong New Yorker, I am revolted by the idea of the militarisation of our streets.” The city has provided more than $123 million to legal service providers this year, hoping that they won’t be stretched if detained migrants are scouring for lawyers.
Along New York’s immigrant arteries, from the Chinese and Mexican enclaves of Sunset Park to the Latino precincts in Corona and Jackson Heights, neighbourhood groups have sprung into action. Smaller raids in those pockets by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have served as dry runs for what many immigrants in the country without legal permission anticipate could grow into bigger roundups. In October, as Trump encroached on other cities, more than 100 unions, community groups and left-wing organisations started a coalition, Hands Off NYC, to protest a similar federal intervention in New York.