BROOKLYN, N.Y. â With New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani escalating his opposition to ICE, federal agents continue to carry out high-stakes street arrests that one of the agency’s top officials says could be avoided if the city cooperated with federal authorities instead of enforcing its .
Fox News Digital embedded with ICE agents last Thursday, getting a rare, firsthand look at the surveillance, tense stakeouts and split-second decisions behind arrests on Brooklyn streets â while riding along with the agency’s top local enforcement official as he blasted city and state leaders over policies he says put officers and the public at risk.
The early-morning operation saw agents move in on two men, handcuffing them and rushing them into unmarked SUVs. The first arrest was over in seconds. The second turned into a tense struggle.
Behind the wheel was Ken Genalo, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in New York City, who accused Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the City Council of keeping dangerous offenders on the streets.
“100% all of this is about politics. It is not about public safety,” Genalo said as he sat in his vehicle while his team staked out a Georgian illegal migrant charged with sexual abuse.
He argued that sanctuary laws force ICE to track down suspects who should have been handed over to agents at local jails. Instead, agents have to try and apprehend migrants on city streets.
“They don’t acknowledge the victims, they don’t acknowledge the angel families, those that unfortunately have suffered severe loss due to illegal alien crime,” he said.
The operation came less than a week after Mamdani released a Spanish-language video advising New Yorkers on how to respond to ICE agents, as tensions flared following the shooting of a Dominican migrant who authorities say tried to ram officers with his vehicle. The migrant had been in the U.S. for just three years but had already racked up a lengthy rap sheet for theft, robbery, assault, drug and weapons offenses, according to DHS.
The Brooklyn arrests came amid a wider enforcement push, with ICE arresting nearly 2,200 illegal migrants during a statewide crackdown in August, known as Operation Rotten Apple.
But the ride-along with ICE revealed what those figures cannot: hours of painstaking surveillance, careful planning and tense waiting â all for arrests that can be over in seconds and quickly escalate.
Before dawn Thursday, more than a dozen armed ICE agents gathered at a secret Brooklyn location, wearing protective vests marked “ERO.”
Commanders briefed them on several targets and the potential risks: one might be armed, another was an amateur boxer. The stark warnings offered a glimpse into the dangers agents fa
