Democrats love killing pipelines, right? Looks like Zohran Mamdani just got his shut down hard.
Politico reported yesterday that the socialist mayor of New York City had established a good enough relationship with Donald Trump to call in a favor. He asked the president to intervene in an ICE detention in February involving a Columbia University student, who got released within hours. The arrest spiked tensions between ICE and Congress at the time, but not nearly as significantly as the clashes in Minneapolis that resulted in to deaths.
Since that time, Mamdani has tried to demonstrate his influence with the White House by requesting more interventions. It's not clear whether any have succeeded, but it is clear that this pipeline to Trump will come under new management – and that Mamdani's access will likely come to an end.
Guess who the new pipeline manager is?
The continued outreach on detained immigrants speaks to Mamdani’s belief that he can harness his rapport with Trump to advance causes the mercurial president wouldn’t normally support. The fact that Mamdani hasn’t made it publicly known he’s continued these efforts shows the mayor is inclined to keep his overtures quiet in order to have a better chance at success.
But it’s unclear if any of the immigrants besides Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva have actually been released as a result — and there’s growing concern inside the mayor’s administration that the door is closing on that possibility.
In seeking the immigrants’ release, Mamdani’s aides, including Chief of Staff Elle Bisgaard-Church, have communicated mostly with Susie Wiles, Trump’s White House chief of staff, the people with knowledge of the efforts said. Last week, Trump replaced Wiles with Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s most hardline immigration proposals and one of the loudest voices in the president’s ear pushing him to pursue a mass deportation agenda during his second term.
One of the people with knowledge of the Mamdani administration’s approach said the mayor’s team sees it as unlikely that Miller, given his posture on immigration, will keep playing ball in the same way Wiles did.
First off, it's not clear that Wiles ever "played ball." Ellie Aghayeva’s release resulted in part from Mamdani's appeal but also from allegations that federal law enforcement violated the rules in the arrest. They had told Columbia security officials that they wanted access to look for a "missing person," which the university called a misrepresentation and a betrayal of their commitment to work with federal agencies on law enforcement matters. They also allegedly claimed to be from the NYPD rather than ICE.
In other words, there were good reasons to release Aghayeva at the time. The Department of Homeland Security continued to press her case, claiming that the Obama-era DHS revoked her student visa in 2016 for failing to attend class and that she had not remediated the situation in the ten years since. At that time, her case remained active, but a search of news sources does not show the status of her case or her residency since.
As Politico notes, there's no evidence that the Mamdani-Wiles XL pipeline resulted in any other reversals. The chances of any have dropped dramatically with Miller's elevation to chief of staff, and Mamdani's allies understand that well enough:
Murad Awawdeh, a close Mamdani ally who serves as president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said he doesn’t think the mayor’s team should stop engaging with the Trump administration on immigration matters because of Miller’s elevation.
“Stephen Miller is a cruel man who has spent his career targeting immigrants, but he is not the president. Donald Trump is, and the deportation agenda is his,” Awawdeh said. “New York expects the president to work with the mayor, deliver for this city, and end the terror in our neighborhoods. Promoting Miller changes none of that.”
Clearly it does, or Awadeh wouldn't have found it necessary to comment on it.
However, it shouldn't change anything. As long as ICE and Border Patrol agents follow the law while enforcing it, people should not expect favorable treatment on the basis of a friendship between a mayor and a president. The circumstances around Aghayeva's detention raised enough questions to release her, but that doesn't negate an alleged immigration-status violation. Mayors and members of Congress can certainly inquire into specific detentions where circumstances suggest an error or abuse, but illegal aliens who are properly detained should not be subsequently released as political favors to politicians.
If that pipeline existed at all, it should be shut down. Permanently.
The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:
- What lessons can we glean from the GOP's shellacking last week? Andrew Malcolm argues that this might free Donald Trump's range of action for the next two years. Will he anger his base by trying again to cut a deal on immigration reform?
- We also discuss the impact of the Iran War, and whether Trump may stick to his guns there rather than attempt to deal. We finish up on the backlash to two podcasters who made fun of Charlie Kirk's assassination and then blew a chance to apologize sincerely.
The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!