NYC Mayor Mamdani rejects pressure from Democratic Socialists of America to fire NYPD commissioner over ICE

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News on Oct 13, 2026

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NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday rejected calls from his political base on the left to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch over the presence of ICE agents in New York.

“Tisch is the police commissioner. I have no plans to change that,” Mamdani said in Queens on Tuesday morning, his first media availability since Thursday night.

Mamdani went on to praise Tisch’s record, touting her work “uprooting corruption from the upper echelons of the NYPD” as well as overseeing a drop in murders and shootings across the city.

The NYPD has been accused by some on the left of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and mistreating protesters after ICE agents shot an undocumented immigrant, Oscar Belgal, in his car as his 5-year-old son sat in the back set, Belgal, who was injured but survived the shooting, is currently in federal custody.

The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a group close to the mayor, pressured him to fire Tisch if she couldn’t get federal immigration agents out of the city. The DSA has been a sharp critic of Tisch’s law enforcement tactics.

“ICE is a terrorist agency that must be expelled from New York City and abolished,” NYC-DSA said in a statement. “Jessica Tisch must get ICE out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists. If the commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”

ICE is a federal agency that does not require permission from the NYPD or the mayor to operate in the city.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic congressional nominee and close ally of the mayor, directly called for Tisch to leave her post: “The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” Avila Chevalier said in a statement Friday.

Mamdani campaigned for mayor on a platform that including transformative changes to public safety — but those changes have largely not materialized, 10 months into his tenure. On Monday, Mamdani announced a slate of reforms aimed at improving police accountability, as well as a sweeping review of the department’s use of force policies.

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