After border czar Tom Homan vowed to "flood the zone" with ICE agents in response to the shooting of an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams answered whether he will cooperate with the Trump administration's crackdown.
Adams said he would support any efforts to "go after dangerous people like this individual who shot an innocent Customs and Border Patrol agent."
"If he's going to assist us to go after those individuals, I welcome it," he said, adding, "If it's going to be to go after everyday individuals who are trying to complete the path to be a citizen, I don't think we should do that."
Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent, addressed the shooting during a press conference on Monday. He said he has visited the injured officer and that he is "extremely angry that we have a Customs and Border Patrol officer that is in the hospital because a person that should have not been on our street was on our street."
The CBP officer is currently hospitalized in stable condition.
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In response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem singling him out as being responsible for the shooting because of New York City's sanctuary laws, Adams said, "I have nothing to do with the rules that are put in place. I just carry out the rules."
He placed the blame on criminal bail reform laws passed under former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is also running for mayor as an independent. He said the bail reform passed under Cuomo has created a "revolving door criminal justice system" that allowed people such as the shooters to get back on the streets.
"You know how outraged I am because of Andrew's bail reform laws on how we have this revolving door criminal justice system," he said.
"I'm very clear. Always have been clear," he went on. "Stop the revolving door system, go after the dangerous migrants and asylum seekers who are here and allow hardworking people who are in this city to go on with their lives as they go through the process."
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The mayor also addressed mixed reporting on his relationship with President Donald Trump and the administration, saying, "You guys are confusing me. You know that?"
"When they say I do a good job, you attack me, saying that they never criticize me and I never criticize them, although we've taken the administration to court more than any mayor in the country," he said. "And when they say I do something wrong, you say, why aren't you upset that they said I've said that I did something wrong. You can't have it both ways. You know, we're not joined at the hip."
"But when they mention my name of the good things I do, y'all say I'm in their pocket, I'm under their thumb. Like, I mean, which one is it? I'm a little confused here. You know, they have their perspective, I have my perspectives, and then we come together sometimes."
The CBP officer was allegedly shot in the face and forearm in Manhattan's Riverside Park on Saturday night in an attempted robbery allegedly by two criminal illegal immigrants. Two suspects, Dominican nationals Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez and Cristian Aybar Berroa, have been arrested in connection with the shooting.
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Noem has said Aybar-Berroa has a criminal record in New York City and that detainers "were ignored" because of Adams' sanctuary city policies.
Meanwhile, socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party's mayoral candidate, has remained silent on the shooting.
Mamdani's social media posts and website show no public statement on the matter, which has become national news and sparked a broader discussion of President Joe Biden's border policies and criticism of sanctuary cities.
Activist and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa commented on the incident on his X account, saying, "A violent illegal alien may have pulled the trigger, but it was Eric Adams' reckless policies that created the conditions for it to happen. He, for sure, has blood on his hands."
Sliwa also said, "I am the only candidate on the ballot who opposes sanctuary city status. Adams, Cuomo, and Mamdani all support it."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa campaigns for comment but did not immediately hear back.
