DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 30
ICE WATCH: Gov. Kathy Hochul wants assurances from President Donald Trump’s administration that a very specific federal immigration officer isn’t operating in New York: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good.
The Democratic governor sent a letter this week to Trump border czar Tom Homan insisting he confirm whether the reportedly redeployed agent, Jonathan Ross, is now working in the Empire State.
“If Jonathan Ross has been reassigned to work in New York, I demand that he be immediately removed and not redeployed unless cleared after a full, independent investigation,” Hochul wrote in the previously unreported letter. “I have no confidence that Ross can be trusted to safely interact with the public. Nor should you.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The notice is the latest effort by Hochul to place guardrails around Trump’s sweeping deportation policies — a push that includes direct White House outreach and expected legislative action to limit the reach of federal immigration agencies like ICE.
The two-track approach underscores how New York officials, including the governor, have been desperate to avoid a potentially destabilizing surge of federal immigration officers in the five boroughs, home to an estimated 560,000 undocumented immigrants.
The push also highlights how Hochul stands to benefit politically from taking an assertive posture against Trump’s immigration policies as she runs for reelection. The president rode back to the White House pledging to remove millions of people living illegally in the United States, only for voter support to quickly erode following the deaths of Good and Alex Pretti during January’s Minnesota crackdown.
A Siena University poll in February found 67 percent of New York voters believe federal immigration tactics had gone too far. The same survey found 59 percent of voters did not want to see more ICE agents flow into New York City.
Trump has dialed back the publicly aggressive deportation effort, but that’s done little to assuage the Hochul administration. The February death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a blind refugee who was left in front of a Buffalo coffee shop by federal agents, further inflamed New York officials.
“I have repeatedly stated that any agents involved in these types of incidents must be properly investigated and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law — not simply reassigned to administrative or investigative duties or shuffled to other states,” Hochul wrote in the letter.
Homan, who has become the Trump administration’s blue state ambassador following the deadly unrest in Minneapolis, met privately with her in Albany last month, and the governor urged him to not conduct a similar operation in the Big Apple.
To that end, Hochul and Democratic state lawmakers are also on the verge of approving a package of sanctuary-like measures meant to erect legal barriers around federal immigration enforcement in New York.
The measures would prohibit federal authorities from carrying out civil deportation warrants in sensitive locations like education facilities and houses of worship. It would also ban formal agreements between agencies like ICE and local police departments from coordinating operations and sharing equipment. And New York is poised to make it easier to sue federal officers if a person believes their constitutional rights have been violated.
The expected package of protections amounts to a sweeping blue state rebuke of Trump’s immigration and deportation policies. It also marks a change for Hochul, a moderate who as a local official two decades ago opposed allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain state driver’s licenses.
Yet some left-leaning state lawmakers worry that Hochul’s opposition to a strict ban on local police communicating with federal immigration authorities will leave undocumented immigrants exposed even as existing sanctuary protections will remain in place.
One legislator, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said the likely agreement is “really inadequate, arguably harmful, because her proposal would create an illusion of legal protections while still proactively permitting law enforcement to share info.” — Nick Reisman
FROM CITY HALL
FARE-LY AUTOMATIC: A majority of City Council members are pushing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to automatically enroll low-income New Yorkers in the city’s transit discount program.
Currently, New Yorkers need to furnish proof of identity, age, residence and taxable income to enroll in Fair Fares, which offers a 50 percent discount on subway, bus and paratransit rides for those at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
In a Wednesday letter to Erin Dalton, Mamdani’s social services commissioner, 28 of the Council’s 51 members wrote that the application requirements needlessly keep people out of the program.
The letter, obtained by Playbook, says only about 370,000 of the city’s 1.4 million eligible residents benefit from Fair Faires, largely because many don’t know of its existence.
The city lawmakers, led by progressive Council Member Crystal Hudson, wrote to Dalton that the disparity can be fixed by automatically enrolling all eligible residents by using application information they’ve already provided while applying for SNAP, Cash Assistance, Medicaid and other city-administered public benefits.
“The City of New York has the information on hand and could easily enact automatic enrollment,” wrote the Council members, who included democratic socialist allies of the mayor like Tiffany Cabán and more moderate colleagues like Eric Dinowitz.
“Affordability is a top concern for New York City residents, and one in five New Yorkers struggles to pay the fare,” the lawmakers also wrote. “In short, we can help lower costs for New Yorkers by making it easier to enroll in the Fair Fares program.”
Asked about the letter, Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said Thursday that the administration is “reviewing the automatic Fair Fares enrollment proposal.”
“The mayor remains deeply committed to collaborating with our city and state partners to make transit more affordable for all New Yorkers,” Pekec said.
Mamdani campaigned last year on a promise to eliminate fares on city buses so riding them would become completely free. But he acknowledged in an interview with POLITICO earlier this month that he won’t be able to make good on that pledge this year.
In the meantime, transportation advocates are ramping up pressure on him to find other ways to make transit more affordable. The letter from the Council members comes after a coalition of transit advocates earlier this month called on the mayor to usher in automatic Fair Fares enrollment.
Such a measure would likely come with a cost increase for the city-funded program. And that could prove tricky for Mamdani, who’s scrambling to address a multibillion-dollar city budget deficit.
Council Speaker Julie Menin, who’s in negotiations with Mamdani on the budget, did not sign Wednesday’s letter. “She doesn’t always sign on to colleague letters as speaker, but she is on record supporting automatic enrollment for Fair Fares,” her spokesperson Henry Robins said. — Chris Sommerfeldt
PIED-À-TERREABLE MATH: City Comptroller Mark Levine released a reality check for the mayor and governor, who are hoping to raise $500 million annually through a pied-à-terre tax to help the city’s ailing budget.
Levine found by using past proposals as a rubric that the tax would only reach those heights under the most ideal of scenarios. When factoring in otherwise eligible properties that are rentals — meaning they would be exempt — and pied-à-terre owners who would either sell or rent to avoid the tax, the yearly take-home for the city would be between $340 million to $380 million.
“As we continue to work toward budget agreements at the City and State levels, it’s imperative that government leaders, advocates and New Yorkers know how major new revenue proposals might reliably impact our budget,” Levine said in a statement.
The mayor’s office countered that the proposal is not yet fully baked, and that it will be designed in concert with the governor in a way that ensures it nets at least $500 million.
“The Comptroller’s report makes one thing very clear: thoughtfully crafting and implementing this legislation will do exactly that,” a spokesperson said. — Joe Anuta
VOUCHER FIGHT: Menin is playing to both sides of the debate over the costly rental subsidy known as CityFHEPS.
She joined advocates and Council members at a rally Thursday morning to urge Mamdani to drop a lawsuit fighting a voucher expansion — which the mayor pledged to do on the campaign trail. But Menin also agreed the costs “are not sustainable” and said a settlement the council has offered will contain them, while still expanding the program in some form.
“We have come in, with the leadership of Council member [Pierina] Sanchez and the advocates, with a responsible, reasonable settlement,” Menin said at the rally, where Council members and advocates chanted, “Mayor Mamdani, keep your promise!”
Menin declined to elaborate on the specifics of the settlement proposal since talks are ongoing.
The vouchers are already growing in cost at a rate of 4 percent per month, and the laws to expand eligibility — which the Council approved in 2023 — are estimated to increase costs further by somewhere between $6 and $22 billion over five years, according to the city comptroller’s office.
“We do agree that there has to be a change to the cost structure,” Menin told reporters at a press conference later Thursday. “We have been working very closely with the advocates on that. We have put forward a reasonable settlement, which is why we believe that continuing to litigate delays our ability to reach the settlement.”
Hochul has reportedly asked the mayor to look at the rental subsidies as one place where the city can find savings. Asked whether she’s spoken to the governor about the program, Menin said “she and I both agree we need to have cost containment.”
“We recognize the cost has grown exponentially,” Menin said. “I think we’re in a very good place on cost containment that literally contains the cost but also protects vulnerable New Yorkers.”
Mamdani has argued that if the city were to drop its appeal, it would be on the hook for billions in additional costs over just the next few years.
“Mayor Mamdani has been clear that CityFHEPS is an invaluable tool to prevent homelessness and support homeless New Yorkers,” City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said in a statement on Thursday’s rally. “That is why our team is working hard to ensure that it is fiscally sound and sustainable for the long-term.” — Janaki Chadha and Gelila Negesse
IN OTHER NEWS
— COMMUNITY SAFETY: Advocates are worried Mamdani’s police reform efforts in cases involving mentally ill people may sideline the anti-domestic violence office at City Hall. (The New York Times)
— BOARD OF REJECTIONS: A candidate for an Albany assembly district seat is contesting the state election board’s decision to reject his bid after he was disqualified for allegedly failing to meet residency and party enrollment requirements. (Times Union)
— BEHIND THE BARS: New York state prisons are seeing a sharp rise in violence with staff and incarcerated people both sounding the alarm of increased assault rates. (NY 1)
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