Mamdani tells ICE to stop using city park lots or face a lawsuit. The Council has been asking about those lots since March

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday demanded that federal immigration agents stop using city-owned parking lots as staging areas and said the city would go to court if they keep coming back. In a letter announced by City Hall and addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting ICE Director David J. Venturella and ICE's New York field office director, the mayor said agents had reportedly parked vehicles and held meetings in unstaffed city lots at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and along 111th Street on the west side of Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, next to a city-run preschool.

"If they keep coming back, we will see them in court," Mamdani said in the release. The mayor's office called the use "unauthorized and therefore illegal" and asked ICE to issue guidance barring agents from the lots. Corporation Counsel Steven Banks said the city is prepared to sue if the use does not stop, amNY reported. Neither amNY nor NY1 included a response from the Department of Homeland Security.

The same day, the Parks Department issued a policy for its frontline workers, amNY reported: ask federal officers seeking entry to nonpublic areas for identification, send any warrant to agency lawyers rather than judge it themselves, keep agents out of restricted areas without a judicial warrant or other authorization, avoid physical or verbal confrontation, and document suspected staging in public areas when it is safe to do so.

Why it matters to residents: the lots sit in two of the city's busiest parks, and the letter follows last month's fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Marble Hill, where agents had reportedly staged from a nearby private lot, according to amNY. In October, the mayor and more than 100 elected officials asked private garage and lot owners to refuse ICE access, because the city's own rules cover only public property.

What our records add

The rule on lots comes from a mayoral order, not a local law. Executive Order 13, signed Feb. 6, bars outside law enforcement agencies from using city-owned lots as staging grounds without a judicial warrant or another legal exception, amNY reported. At the Council's March 5 Oversight and Investigations hearing, Acting Investigation Commissioner Christopher Ryan described the order as having prohibited the use of city lots as a staging ground for non-local law enforcement operations.

The committee chair asked about city property in March. At a March 25 Immigration Committee hearing, Chair Elsie Encarnación noted that the order was meant to bar ICE agents from entering city-owned properties without a judicial warrant, and asked the administration for an update.

In September, the administration said lot guidance was out. The committee devoted its Sept. 22 hearing to the order's audit report. Encarnación opened by saying "laws are only as good as their enforcement and implementation" (1:59). Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Faiza Ali testified that the city had updated its guidance on non-local law enforcement access to city property and lots and issued it to agencies, and that the six agencies covered by the audit, plus the public schools and Health + Hospitals, had completed updated access protocols (17:02). Asked about timing, Ali said both pieces of citywide guidance had been issued (35:08). Parks was not one of the six audited agencies, according to her testimony; Monday's Parks policy is new.

Witnesses asked the Council to make it law. Later in the same hearing, a public witness urged the Council to set a firm deadline for agencies to finish their policies and to consider which protections should become permanent law rather than depending on a single administration (2:06:31).

Related bills are waiting. Int. 739, from Shahana K. Hanif, would require agencies to train staff and publish plans for handling immigration enforcement. It has seven sponsors and has waited 238 days, since March 10, without a hearing. Int. 209, also from Hanif, would create a private right of action related to city cooperation with federal immigration authorities; it has 19 Council sponsors and has waited 278 days. Neither bill addresses parking lots by name.

What's next

The Immigration Committee's oversight hearing on enforcement activity in the city is set for Nov. 20 (agenda item). Our earlier stories cover the Council's rights signage law and the bills waiting on immigration enforcement.