Mamdani Has Quietly Asked Trump To Release Dozens Of Detained Immigrants

NEW YORK — During his second White House meeting with President Donald Trump in February, Mayor Zohran Mamdani managed to convince the commander-in-chief to release a college student who’d been detained by federal immigration agents earlier that day.

The win served as validation for Mamdani, who pointed to the Columbia University senior’s release as proof that his shockingly cordial relationship with Trump could lead to positive results for New Yorkers.

What remained unknown at the time was that Mamdani would continue to request such immigration-related favors from the Republican president.

Since the February sitdown, Mamdani and his staff have quietly provided Trump’s team with the names of about two dozen more immigrant New Yorkers in ICE custody — and have asked the president to order their release, according to two people with knowledge of the outreach who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. Most recently, Mamdani shared the names of detained immigrants during his September meeting with Trump at Gracie Mansion, the two people told POLITICO.

The two people said the immigrants in question do not have serious criminal histories. But they declined to otherwise identify them, citing safety considerations.

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.

Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for Mamdani, declined to comment on internal concerns about Miller or share any details about the immigrants whose releases the mayor has sought. She did say that Mamdani “is always advocating directly on behalf of New Yorkers in his conversations and meetings with the president.”

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.”

The White House did not return a request for comment Monday.

Mamdani’s chummy relationship with Trump has bewildered his allies and critics alike.

During last year’s New York City mayoral race, Trump labeled Mamdani a “communist lunatic” and threatened to arrest him. In turn, the democratic socialist 35-year-old declared the president a “fascist” and vowed to fight him tooth-and-nail if elected mayor.

But all that bad blood was water under the bridge after their first White House meeting late last year, when they struck a convivial tone. That culminated in September at Grace Mansion, where Trump said Mamdani has “great potential” to become “a great mayor.” Mamdani returned the favor by crediting the president with having “built quite a lot of housing here in our city.”

Yet, for all the pleasantries, it remains to be seen how many substantive achievements Mamdani can actually make thanks to Trump, including on immigration.

To date, the release of Aghayeva remains one of the most concrete concessions Mamdani has secured from Trump. Their teams are also in talks about exploring a federally-backed, mutibillion-dollar housing development in Queens, and last month Mamdani was able to leverage his relationship with Trump to secure a short-term visa for a woman from Ghana whose son was fatally shot in the Bronx. Other than that, not much substantive has materialized between the two, though the absence of punitive action against New York from Trump is seen by Mamdani allies as a win for the city.

Given that the Republican Party lost control of both chambers of Congress in last Tuesday’s elections, Trump’s political standing is seen as especially weak at the moment.

It’s unclear how that political outlook for Trump might impact his approach to engaging with ideological foes like Mamdani, but the elevation of Miller as chief of staff would appear to suggest Trump isn’t interested in finding centrist ground, especially when it comes to immigration.

Still, the mayor said last week he doesn’t plan to stop seeking Trump’s help despite their “vehement” policy disagreements.

“We have found a place of common interest in the welfare of New York City, and so I will continue to leave that door open so long as it can deliver for our city,” Mamdani told POLITICO on Friday in Puerto Rico, where he and other New York elected officials gathered for the annual Somos political conference.

In an interview that aired two days later on Fox News, a network Trump is known to watch religiously, Mamdani said he continues to have “a productive relationship” with the president and that they continue to text and talk on the phone frequently.

“Over the course of these conversations, we have been able to free a New Yorker from ICE detention. We have been able to secure a visa for a grieving mother who would otherwise have to watch her son be buried from thousands of miles away,” he said. “And that to me speaks to the fact that my job is to deliver for New Yorkers, and I have to work with whomever it is, wherever they are, so long as they have the power to do that.”