Tom Homan torches New York City for blocking immigration authorities from doing their jobs

Border czar Tom Homan criticized the New York City Council on Monday for preventing immigration authorities from entering Rikers Island.

An off-duty Border Patrol agent was ambushed and shot on Saturday in New York City in an apparent robbery attempt by an illegal migrant and a co-conspirator. Homan, during a press conference in the city, said President Donald Trump’s administration would be ramping up enforcement in response to the incident and the city’s refusal to let ICE into the prison.

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“[S]anctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals — hard stop. I’ve been doing this since 1984. I’ve never seen a situation where I see it today. New York City, how many times do you want to see the NYPD attacked by illegal alien criminals in this city? Now a federal officer,” Homan said. “How many citizens in this city been attacked by illegal aliens in this city? You see the polls — everybody agrees we should be arresting public safety threat illegal aliens. But you got a city council here that locked us out of Rikers Island. Are you kidding me?”

A New York judge in April blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from entering Rikers Island after the New York City Council filed a lawsuit to stop Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order allowing ICE agents onto Rikers Island from being implemented.

“So an illegal alien in Rikers Island, we can’t talk to, we don’t have access to. That makes the city unsafe. Every sanctuary city is unsafe. I’ll say it again: sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. And I want to work very hard with [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem to keep President Trump’s commitment from several weeks ago that sanctuary cities are now our priority,” Homan said. “We are going to flood the zone. You don’t want to let us into the jail to arrest the bad guy in the safety and security of a jail, you want to release him into the streets, which makes it unsafe for the community, makes it unsafe for the officer, makes it unsafe for the alien. Anything can happen on a street arrest.”

“We’ll have 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 the bad guy in the security of the county jail, then we’ll arrest him in the community, we’ll arrest him in the jail,” he added. “And when we arrest him in the community, if he’s with others that are in the country illegally, they’re coming too. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals. President Trump is not going to tolerate it. And I’ll work every day with Secretary Noem to make sure we get as many bad guys — illegal aliens — out of this country that we can.”

The agent was attacked while with a female companion by two men on a moped in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan, according to a Sunday post on X by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noem also announced at the presser that the second suspect — also an illegal immigrant — had been taken into custody.

Noem identified the second suspect as Christhian Aybar-Berroa, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, in a Monday X post.

“He entered the country illegally in 2022 under the Biden Administration and was ordered for final removed in 2023 by an immigration judge,” she wrote. “He has a criminal record in New York City and detainers were IGNORED thanks to @ericadamsfornyc sanctuary city policies. He was arrested for reckless endangerment and larceny and was released before ICE could get him off the streets.”

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