Gov. Kathy Hochul invited border czar Tom Homan to her office in Albany on Friday, arguing against increased federal immigration enforcement and for the release of several detained students.
“He came here because I initiated a conversation about our deep concerns about immigration enforcement in the state of New York while I was in the White House two weeks ago,” said Hochul, who appeared without Homan after the meeting at a press conference.
The pair talked face-to-face for an hour, according to a Hochul spokesman, during a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol Building.
Appearing to lean on her decent relationship with President Donald Trump, Hochul said there won’t be any deployment of federal immigration officers without her request.
“He would not engage in a large-scale surge in the state of New York unless, he said, ‘Unless Kathy asked.’” she said, describing her conversation with Trump recently in Washington, D.C. during a Democratic Governors Association conference.
“I can, once again, reassure all New Yorkers that [that] request will never occur,” she added.
Hochul also said that “the names of a number of students who are in detention who we would like to see released” was provided at the meeting. She asked specifically about four students detained due to immigration status who attended either high school or colleges in New York, but a spokesman told NY1 the governor’s office is not sharing individual names “to protect them as best we can.”
It’s unclear if those people overlap with the students Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked Trump to release during his own White House meeting last week – Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi and Leqaa Kordia.
Shortly after that meeting, another Columbia University student, Ellie Aghayeva, was released after Mamdani advocated on her behalf to Trump.
The Hochul-Homan meeting also comes on the heels of Trump firing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who faced backlash for the way immigration enforcement was conducted in Minneapolis.
When asked how Homan responded to her pitches, Hochul refused to give details.
“I will not be discussing his side of the conversations,” she said.
She said the pair talked about work permits for immigrants who want to gain legal employment in industries such as agriculture, hospitality and health care,
Hochul also asked Homan to greenlight visas for the family of an immigrant from Myanmar who died in Buffalo recently after U.S. Border Patrol agents dropped him off outside a donut shop.
“I took the opportunity to make our positions clear: first of all, I do not support open borders, and we want to ensure that our borders are safe and secure,” Hochul said.
“I do not support having individuals who committed violent crimes remain in our state. They should be deported. But I also believe in a pathway to citizenship,” she added.
Meanwhile, Hochul and the state Legislature are negotiating a package of bills that would curb the way New York cooperates with the federal government on immigration issues. Hochul said the legislation did not come up in the conversation.