Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s handpicked “border czar,” celebrated New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s bipartisan approach to immigration policy and encouraged other Democrats to follow his example.
Some Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), were incensed after Trump won a second term and quickly geared up resistance efforts to thwart the incoming administration’s plans to deport illegal immigrants.
However, Adams recently broke that approach by vowing to find common ground with some of Trump’s goals, a move that Homan urged fellow Democrats to replicate during a speech in Illinois on Monday.
While speaking to Republicans in Chicago, Homan lamented the resistance the Left has mounted to Trump’s deportation plans. The president-elect particularly wants to immediately deport violent prison inmates who are in the country illegally when he assumes office in January 2025.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) has also vowed to resist Trump, spearheading a gubernatorial alliance aimed at countering the president-elect earlier this month. Pritzker and Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) started the Safeguarding Democracy initiative just over a week after the election.
As Illinois’s largest city faces nearly a $1 billion budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, Homan told Chicago constituents that the immigration policies their Democratic leaders have set have left their home in a mess.
“Chicago is in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks,” Homan said, referencing Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Homan said on Monday he wanted to see Illinois leaders “come to the table” to discuss deportation efforts.
“Help us protect you. Please. But if you don’t, get the hell out of the way,” Homan said, later pledging that the deportation effort would commence on “Jan. 21, and we’re going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois.”
Trump’s border czar urged Illinois Democrats to reach out to him as Adams did during a New York City news conference one week ago.
“They need to reach out to me. Just like the mayor of New York reached out,” he told Politico. His comments followed Adams welcoming Homan’s border ideas.
“I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens,” the New York Democrat said. “Find out what his plans are, where our common grounds are. We can work together.”
“I don’t want people talking at each other,” he added. “I want people to talk to each other. I made it clear that I’m not going to be warring with this administration. I’m going to be working with this administration.”
The mayor has warmed up to Trump in recent years, particularly after both men faced bruising indictments.
Adams has also evolved on the immigration issue. In 2021, he insisted New York City’s sanctuary policy would not change under his leadership.
However, deep cracks in his support for unchecked sanctuary city policy began to manifest last year, when he criticized the Biden administration’s relaxed border policies, saying they were draining New York’s economy.
Adams most recently suggested during an interview on Sunday that he would bypass the New York City Council to tweak the sanctuary city designation.
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“The City Council made it clear they don’t want to change that,” Adams said during an appearance on CBS. “They stated they’re not willing to change the sanctuary city law. I think they’re wrong. I have my teams looking at my power as executive orders.”
“Do I have the power to do so? I have to protect the people of this city,” he said. “That is my north star.”