New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has threatened to sue the Trump administration over the reported use of city-owned parking lots by immigration agents to stage enforcement operations. In a letter sent on Monday 2 November to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting ICE Director David Venturella and ICE New York field office director Kenneth Genalo, Mamdani said the city had not authorised the use of its property for immigration enforcement.

According to the letter, ICE agents have reportedly parked vehicles and held meetings in several unstaffed city-owned lots, including one at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and others along 111th Street beside Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, next to a city-run preschool and nearby cultural institutions. "If your agents continue any unauthorized use of these lots, New York City will take legal action to prevent this unlawful commandeering of City property," Mamdani wrote, calling the practice unauthorised and illegal.

The Department of Homeland Security rejected the demand, saying that "ICE's presence in public parking lots is fully authorized under federal law and is a standard practice for law enforcement agencies nationwide." Mamdani also announced new instructions for New York City Parks workers under his Executive Order 13, directing them to refuse outside law enforcement access to city property without a judicial warrant,. Governor Kathy Hochul backed the mayor.

The dispute follows an earlier letter from Mamdani in October, signed by more than 100 elected officials including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, asking private parking owners not to rent or lend property to ICE. Mamdani has repeatedly called for ICE to be abolished, including after ICE shootings in Houston in July and New York City last month that killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and wounded Oscar Belgal.