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CV NEWS FEED // Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared alongside Trump administration White House Border Czar Tom Homan on “Fox & Friends” Friday to discuss their plans to deport criminal illegal migrants and find children who went missing as a result of the border crisis.
The joint interview followed a meeting between the two men held the day before at New York City’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in lower Manhattan.
Adams said he and Homan “were able to get in the room and really articulate what are my powers, what are my authorities, and what are some of the things that we need to legislatively address that is preventing us from doing what we want to do.”
“And that is getting dangerous people off our streets,” the mayor added.
Host Steve Doocy pointed out that in the days leading up to the meeting, Homan expressed frustration over Adams’ handling of New York City’s migrant crisis. A source close to Homan had told The New York Post that he was “not happy and hasn’t seen enough progress” from Adams on the issue.
In the FOX interview, Homan said that while he has “called the mayor out many times” during the past few years, he “saw the cop” in Adams when he sat down with him Thursday. “And he really does want to do the right thing, He is a cop. He is a lifelong cop.”
Both Homan and Adams spent time as police officers in the Empire State. Adams served in the New York Police Department (NYPD) for over 20 years, while Homan began his career as an officer in Upstate New York before becoming a border patrol agent.
Adams “wants to take public safety threats off the streets of New York and make New York safer,” Homan told Doocy. “He also wants to help find these missing children. We got 300,000 missing children. Many of them are here in this city … we got to find them.
Homan noted that the Trump administration will work with Adams’ “intelligence division, his officers to save these children, because many of these children are in forced sex trafficking, many are in forced labor. We need to save them.”
“And I think anybody can agree to that,” Homan added. “I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you are on.”
>> HOMAN: ‘WE NEED TO SAVE’ 300,000 MISSING MIGRANT CHILDREN <<
“People want to hijack this narrative and turn it into a political narrative,” Adams chimed in, “where we’re saying we need to have public safety.” He later clarified that he was referring to the far-Left.
“This has been an issue I’ve been talking about before the election,” the mayor said, pointing out that he had raised the need to “go after these dangerous people in our street” back in Spring 2022. “And now I have someone that understands that narrative,” he said, referring to Homan, “and we are fighting together to get it done.”
Adams subsequently discussed his announced executive order to allow ICE agents into the Rikers Island prison complex: “Rikers Island is now having some of the most dangerous people in our city. And by having ICE on Rikers Island … we can identify those gangs inside and outside on the street.”
However, the Democratic mayor did seem to push back when host Brian Kilmeade asked if he would allow New York to remain a “sanctuary city” if the City Council was less left-wing and allowed him a choice in the matter.
“We will always be,” Adams said. “This has always been a city of immigrants. What the sanctuary city is stated that [sic] if you’re in this city and you’re paying taxes, you should have access to the services.”
>> LAST YEAR: ADAMS CALLS FOR PARTIAL CHANGE TO NYC’s ‘SANCTUARY’ STATUS <<
“What I asked the City Council to do,” Adams explained, is “change the bill that is already in place and modify it, that if you are committing a crime, that we should be able to collaborate with ICE even on civil enforcement. If you have committed a crime. That part of the bill is wrong.”
On the other hand, Adams said that police, hospital, and education services should be available for “everyday people who are here … if they are going to school, working, paying taxes. That is what we’re saying.”
Homan noted that he does not agree with this position: “I’m strictly against sanctuary city status because I think sanctuaries are for criminals.”
Nevertheless, the border czar praised Adams’ Rikers Island executive order, calling it a “game changer.”
>> RELATED: BORDER CZAR HOMAN, A COMMITTED CATHOLIC <<
Adams said “the beauty is that we’re allowed to disagree. …My life is sitting down with people I don’t agree with 100% of the time.”
He added that when he and Homan are in a room, “we’re both saying one thing: No matter who you are, if you’re hurting innocent people in this city and in this country, you don’t have to be in our country.”
After his meeting with the border czar Thursday, Adams said via a statement: “Since the spring of 2022, New York City has been forced to shoulder the burden of a national humanitarian crisis where more than 230,000 migrants have come to our city seeking support, at a cost of approximately $7 billion, with little help from the previous administration.”
“That is why I have been clear that I want to work with the new federal administration, not war with them, to find common ground and make better the lives of New Yorkers,” the mayor added.
>> DECEMBER 2024: ADAMS DEFENDS WORKING WITH TRUMP ADMIN, CHALLENGES CRITICS TO ‘CANCEL’ HIM <<
Beginning in late 2023, Adams emerged as a vocal Democratic critic of then-President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, specifically with regard to how they affected New York City.
“DC has abandoned us, and they need to be paying their cost to this national problem,” Adams said in November 2023. “This is unfair what we’re doing to migrant asylum seekers, and it’s unfair what we’re doing to everyday taxpayers. … We deserve better as a city.”
Adams had previously supported lenient immigration policies popular on the Left and vowed to maintain New York City’s “sanctuary” status during his successful 2021 campaign.
Adams is currently running for re-election to a second term in office, with the general election to be held in November. The Democratic Primary – tantamount to election in the deep-blue city – is scheduled for June 24.
The mayor’s approval ratings show that he is deeply unpopular among his city’s residents, with one recent poll finding that he had an even lower approval rating in the Democratic stronghold than President Donald Trump does.
Last September, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Adams on five corruption charges. The indictment came after the DOJ spent months “looking into allegations that Adams illegally accepted campaign funding from Turkey,” CatholicVote reported at the time. The mayor has maintained his innocence and vowed to seek another term in office.
>> SEPTEMBER 2024: BIDEN DOJ INDICTS ADAMS ON CORRUPTION CHARGES <<
Multiple primary challengers have lined up to take on Adams, including far-Left City Comptroller Brad Lander, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chairman Michael Blake, and multiple state legislators.
Controversial former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned following a number of scandals in 2021, may enter the race. Polls show that a potential Cuomo candidacy likely poses the biggest threat to Adams’ reelection chances.
CatholicVote previously reported that, following a March 2020 executive order Cuomo issued “requiring nursing homes in the Empire State to admit COVID-19 patients,” nursing homes “immediately saw a wave of COVID-19 deaths among the elderly and infirm.”
Shortly before his resignation the following year, Cuomo admitted to his administration concealing records of thousands of COVID deaths in nursing homes.
