Mamdani pledges to spend $100 million more to help migrants facing deportation

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Taxpayers will pick up an additional $100 million tab for illegal migrants facing deportation, Democratic Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani pledges, calling it a “cornerstone” of his campaign.

“Four hundred thousand of our residents are right now in urgent risk of deportation,” the socialist lamented on MSNBC “The Weekend,” adding fewer than 200 of them received access to free lawyers last year.

The city’s 2026 budget, passed in June, already includes $54.5 million to fight deportation orders in court on the taxpayer’s dime – “more than any other major city in America,” Mayor Eric Adams has said.

Mamdani aims to blow that amount out of the water, reiterating a promise buried in his campaign platform, under his “Trump-Proofing NYC” tenet.

“A cornerstone of our campaign is to increase funding for those very legal defense services by more than $100 million so that we can ensure we’re taking every step we can to keep New Yorkers safe, to keep New Yorkers together, and to show the world that they are welcome in this city,” he said.

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But critics said this is outrageous to those who are documented and trying to immigrate legally – who not only have to pay their own legal fees, but since last year are actually hit with a $600 “asylum program fee” which goes to processing asylum seekers’ applications.

Since it began in 2022, NYC has spent an estimated $12 billion on the asylum seeker crisis, which besides legal help includes shelter, food and other services.

“New York is in a fiscal crisis, and Mamdani wants to rip another $100 million from taxpayers to bankroll deportation defense, rewarding lawbreaking while seniors, classrooms, sanitation, and public safety go without. It spits in the face of every immigrant who played by the rules, and I will fight this giveaway with everything I’ve got,” ripped Council Member Robert Holden (D-Queens).
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