Tom Homan won’t say when ICE will surge in New York

White House border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday blamed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for a promised surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to New York City.

But Homan would not say when he expected that surge of ICE agents to happen, when questioned by reporters at the White House.

“You can expect more ICE agents to go to New York because Gov. [Kathy] Hochul signed legislation that ended our … agreements” that allowed the agency to delegate state and local law enforcement officers to perform immigration enforcement functions under ICE oversight, he said.

The agreements under ICE’s 287(g) program were used to identify and process removable immigrants who were in jail after being arrested by local authorities on unrelated charges.

“We’re going to surge resources in New York,” he said. “We have to.”

But Homan separately said on Chris Cuomo’s SiriusXM show that a surge of ICE agents to New York will not use the same tactics as in a prior surge of thousands of immigration agents in Minnesota, where two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents in separate incidents in January amid weeks of tense clashes between residents and federal agents.

“You will not see a Minnesota. I will not let Minnesota happen,” Homan said Tuesday on that show.

Hochul, in late May, signed a law that bars local governments, state and local police, and state and local correctional facilities “from entering into 287(g) Agreements or similar agreements with the federal government that allow for state and local law enforcement personnel and facilities to be used for civil immigration enforcement purposes,” the governor’s office said in a press release.

Homan on Tuesday at the White House said a surge of ICE agents to New York is necessary because “she took the efficiencies of the jails away in the 287(g) agreements, so it’s only it’s math.”

“One agent can arrest one bad guy in the safety and security of the jail, which is safer for the aliens, safer for the agent, safer for the community,” Homan said.

“But [Hochul] decided to kill all that, so now we’ve got to send more agents to do the job,” he said.

“Gov. Hochul can say she supports the removal of criminal aliens, she wants to work with ICE on criminal aliens. Homan said.

“But she locks us out of jail. She ended the 287(g) grant. You can’t square that,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. She’s lying to the people in New York state.”

Hochul fired back at Homan in a post on X, which the governor’s office referred CNBC to after being asked for comment about the border czar’s remarks.

“As I’ve told the President and Tom Homan, New York will never be a sanctuary for dangerous criminals,” Hochul wrote in her tweet.

“We will continue working with federal authorities to target violent offenders,” the governor wrote.

“But we will not stand by if ICE…