ICE has begun quietly courting New York police officers after Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win, offering generous pay packages and framing itself as an alternative for officers unhappy with the mayor-elect’s policing agenda.
Morale inside the New York Police Department is fraying after Zohran Mamdani’s victory for mayor, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has noticed. The agency has moved from posting job openings to actively courting NYPD officers who may be reconsidering their careers under a new city leadership less friendly to traditional policing.
In a post to X, ICE wrote: “NYPD OFFICERS: Defend your family. Defend your city. Defend the Homeland.” The announcement highlighted recruitment incentives that include a $50,000 signing bonus, $60,000 for student loan repayments, and 25 percent premium pay to sweeten the move for experienced officers.
The recruitment drive follows a major federal lawmaking effort that pumped money into immigration enforcement. To fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise to deport every illegal immigrant in the United States, the Big, Beautiful Bill allocated nearly $30 billion in new funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and it called for ICE to hire at least 10,000 new officers to carry out national deportation objectives.
That hiring push translated into a surge of applicants and rapid offers: the Department of Homeland Security’s initiative drew more than 200,000 applications and by September 2025 had extended over 18,000 job offers. Those numbers matter because they show ICE isn’t scrambling — it’s scaling up, and it can make attractive financial cases to officers who feel undervalued or sidelined at home.
ICE spokespeople have signaled they would be glad to extend more offers to disgruntled and seasoned officers of the NYPD, and the pitch is direct: better pay, clear federal mission, and the perceived respect that comes with being part of a nationwide enforcement effort. For many rank-and-file officers, the choice comes down to staying with a city department under pressure or joining an agency with fresh investment and a clear law-and-order mandate.
The push is not happening in a vacuum. The NYPD’s interest in switching jobs stems in part from the policies of self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who has emphasized mental health initiatives as his primary approach to addressing the city’s crime problem. Mamdani has also called for defunding the NYPD, positioning himself as a politician fundamentally opposed to law enforcement and its traditional tools.
Mamdani has also described the NYPD as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and labeled the department as a “rogue agency.” Those exact words from the mayor-elect have been seized on by opponents and have deepened the sense among many officers that the incoming administration will be hostile to their work and perspective.
From a Republican viewpoint, this situation exposes a predictable trade-off when a city elevates ideology over policing: officers vote with their feet, public safety expertise leaves, and gaps appear where policy experiments are meant to fill them. The federal offers highlight a simple reality — where local politics make policing harder, federal roles that promise resources and mission clarity become attractive.
The coming months will test whether New York’s leadership can reassure veteran officers and stabilize morale, or whether the city will see a steady drain to federal agencies offering higher pay and a firmer law-and-order mission. Either way, the choices now on display will shape who protects the city and how public safety is managed under a markedly different mayoral agenda.
