New York assemblyman tries to confront Tom Homan over arrest of Columbia University anti-Israel activist

A New York state elected official was seen Wednesday appearing to attempt to get past police while shouting at border czar Tom Homan, who was in the state capital to call out Democrats over their illegal immigration policies.

Assembly member and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was seen in Albany shouting at Homan over the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and the recent detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and anti-Israel activist.

Video footage posted online shows Mamdani trying to get past New York State police troopers while shouting at Homan.

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“How many more New Yorkers will you detain? How many more New Yorkers without charge?” he shouted. “Do you believe in the First Amendment, Tom Homan?”

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House. 

In a post on X, Mamdani said he confronted Homan, who visited Albany to “do Trump’s bidding — push for mass deportations, carry out the assault on working class New Yorkers, and justify the unjustifiable detention of legal permanent resident and father-to-be, Mahmoud Khalil.”

“Under Trump’s watch, we are seeing the erosion of the fundamental rights that make us American, including the right to peacefully protest injustice and speak freely about our beliefs,” Mamdani said in a statement provided by his campaign to Fox News Digital. “Meanwhile, [New York City Mayor] Eric Adams is standing idly by, because he knows as long as he kisses Trump’s ring, he can avoid legal accountability. New Yorkers deserve a leader who will stand up for our Constitutional rights against advancing authoritarianism.”

Khalil, a Palestinian raised in Syria and a permanent U.S. resident, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at his university-owned apartment on Saturday and told they were revoking his green card and student visa, according to Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer.

Khalil played a major role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University and met with university officials on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group of student groups urging the university to divest from Israel, according to CNN. 

President Donald Trump announced Khalil’s arrest on Monday, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would revoke the green cards of any Hamas supporters in the U.S. and deport them.

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“Following my previously signed executive orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “This is the first arrest of many to come.”

Homan planned to stand with state Republican lawmakers fighting to repeal the state’s Green Light law, which is being legally challenged by the Trump administration. The law, also known as the Driver’s License Act, allows illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.

Mamdani said Homan smirked when confronted. 

“Because there is no answer from taking a man from his pregnant wife who is due to deliver their newborn in a month,” he said, noting that Khalil told Columbia University officials that he feared for his life. 

“The cowardice that is on display across our city and our state is unacceptable,” he added. “New Yorkers are looking to us. They are looking to their leaders for courage and for conviction, and what they are finding instead is collaboration.”

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report.