Canal Street ICE raid takes center stage at final NYC mayoral debate

QUEENS, New York (CN) — In the final New York City mayoral debate Wednesday night, candidates were asked to explain how they would respond to President Donald Trump’s army of federal immigration enforcers.

This question comes as dozens of federal agents descended on New York City’s Chinatown this week, where they detained nine immigrants accused of selling knockoff designer merchandise on Canal Street sidewalks. Viral videos show the officers clashing with angry New Yorkers on the crowded city streets.

Four U.S. citizens were reportedly arrested in the commotion.

“ICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve,” said Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, commenting on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that swarmed Manhattan. “What we need to be doing here in our city is to end the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government.”

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is trailing Mamdani in the polls after losing the Democratic primary and is running for mayor on an independent ballot line, touted his past government experience as proof he’d be able to go toe-to-toe with the president.

“I’ve had a lot of dealing with President Trump and there’s only one way to deal with him,” Cuomo said. “He puts his finger in your chest, and you have to put your finger right back in his chest.”

The former governor harked back to his time in Albany, when Trump sent ICE agents to upstate New York. Cuomo said he called Trump and lambasted him for sending federal agents without coordinating with local police.

Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who founded the nonprofit anti-crime organization the Guardian Angels and has spent decades as a city radio host, blamed New York’s bail reform laws for allowing the street vending to get to the point of federal intervention. But even he acknowledged that federal agents should never have come to Canal Street.

“This is a matter that should have been left up to the NYPD,” he said.

Wednesday night was the last time Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa will share a stage before the city’s early voting kicks off on Saturday. The candidates met at LaGuardia Community College for the election cycle’s final debate, hosted by Spectrum News NY1.

In addition to federal immigration enforcement, candidates were asked about the housing crisis and how they’d help the roughly 154,000 New York City public school students that reported being homeless in the past year.

Calling it “a stain on our city,” Mamdani dove into his signature proposal to deliver 200,000 new affordable homes across the five boroughs while freezing rents for more than 2 million rent stabilized tenants.

Cuomo blasted the idea, calling Mamdani’s commitment to freeze the rent nothing more than “a great three-word slogan for TikTok.”

“We’re not building enough affordable housing, and you need a competent, productive government to do that,” Cuomo said.

Sliwa then bashed Cuomo, claiming he did nothing about the homelessness crisis during his 10-year stint as the governor and accusing him of spending “more money on a singing water fountain at LaGuardia Airport than he did on the average cost of an affordable housing unit.”

The dynamic set the tone for the rest of the night; time and time again, Cuomo set his sights on Mamdani in an effort to chip into his lead, blasting the 34-year-old state assemblyman, saying he lacked experience. And Sliwa went after Cuomo for his record as a member of the Democratic establishment and having to leave office in disgrace on the heels of sexual harassment claims.

Meanwhile, Mamdani appeared chummy with — and seemingly often amused by— his Republican counterpart in Sliwa, who is polling in a distant third place and seen as far less of a threat to Mamdani’s lead than Cuomo is.

At one point, candidates were asked how they would rank the candidates on the stage in a ranked-choice voting scenario. Mamdani said he’d rank himself first and Sliwa second.

“Please, don’t be glazing me here, Zohran,” Sliwa said, eliciting a hearty chuckle from Mamdani.

Sliwa and Cuomo each said they’d only rank themselves in such a scenario.

As early voting closes in, pressure has mounted on Sliwa to drop out of the race, allowing moderates and conservatives to coalesce behind Cuomo and prevent a victory for Mamdani — an unabashed Democratic socialist whose support for Palestine has concerned some Zionist New Yorkers.

But Sliwa has been defiant, insisting once again on Wednesday that he would be seeing his campaign through to the very end. He doubled down by lobbing more attacks at Cuomo, homing in on some of his more scrutinized scandals as a longtime public official, like claims of sexual misconduct and his handling of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Mamdani piled on.

“Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment,” Mamdani said. “Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself, all while describing these allegations as entirely political … what do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?”

Cuomo again denied the allegations, pointing to the fact that he was never criminally charged by any district attorneys.

“Everything you just said was a misstatement," Cuomo said.

Incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams, amid dismal polling and numerous scandals, dropped out of the mayoral race last month after running a short-lived reelection campaign on an independent line. He’s expected to back Cuomo.

Each candidate on Wednesday was asked whether they’d accept an endorsement from the mayor. Mamdani declined. Sliwa said: “Absolutely not, put that crook in jail.”

Cuomo was the only candidate to say he would. Roughly a half-hour after the debate ended, he posted a photo of him and Adams sitting at the Knicks’ home opener at Madison Square Garden.

“No better way to celebrate winning tonight’s debate than making it to the @nyknicks game in time for the 2nd half,” Cuomo wrote.

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