Trump's border czar visits the state Capitol

What Tom Homan said about Mahmoud Khalil, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and more.

Good afternoon — it’s Wednesday and Plant a Flower Day.

In today’s CapCon (featuring a free 30-day trial this month):

• Tom Homan, the ‘border czar’ for President Donald J. Trump visited the state Capitol Wednesday.

• Homan was here to call for changes to state law but also had some choice words about Gov. Kathy Hochul and the arrest of legal resident Mahmoud Khalil.

• Democrats responded in force, calling Homan a “white supremacist” and rejecting his very presence in Albany.

• New Bills of Note: Crackdown on illegal online gambling, relief for school districts on Child Victims Act payments and the end of Daylight Saving Time.

• At The Capitol: What’s happening here Thursday.

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‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan with Republicans Wednesday (Will Waldron/Times Union)

🗣️ Tom Homan visits Albany to call for Green Light Law repeal, hammer Hochul

I haven’t seen Democrats as angry as they were at the state Capitol Wednesday since Gov. Kathy Hochul paused congestion pricing last June.

That ire was directed at Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called “border czar.” His actual title is executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations.

You might remember Homan as the guy who said to New York City Mayor Eric Adams on live, national television that he would be “up his butt” if the mayor didn’t help federal immigration authorities with their efforts in the city.

“Tom Homan is up here in Albany, which is a little surprising to me because he told Eric Adams he would be up somewhere else,” said Assemblywoman Grace Lee, a Democrat from Manhattan.

Democrats and advocates for immigrant rights swarmed around Homan as he left the conference room for Republicans in the state Senate. Homan, who was eating an apple, didn’t bat an eye as he made his way to the elevator by the Senate chamber.

“I don’t know if you saw Mr. Homan enjoying an apple while he was walking down the hall — an apple probably picked by an undocumented person on a farm somewhere in this state,” quipped state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx.

Homan is a New Yorker himself. He’s from West Carthage, a small village in Jefferson County that’s also the hometown of Assemblyman Scott Gray.

“Prior to his appointment, he called me up,” Gray said. “He said ‘we’re going to take care of a few things in New York,’ And he said one of those things is the northern border.”

There’s been an uptick in illegal crossings from Canada at the state’s northern border in the last few years. Some of those crossings have resulted in high-profile deaths in an area that’s not easy to traverse on foot.

But Homan said that’s been difficult to combat because of the state’s Green Light Law, which allows noncitizens to obtain driver’s licenses. But it also blocks the federal government from accessing the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles database to protect their identities from immigration authorities.

He wants to be able to use that data to more easily identify immigrants who, he claimed, could be smuggling drugs or other immigrants across the northern border. That data could also be used to identify immigrants with a criminal history, he said.

“This is an attack on immigration enforcement. It’s plain that’s what it is,” Homan said.

(Will Waldron/Times Union)

🔴 What Homan said about Mahmoud Khalil, Adams, Hochul and more

Homan’s decision to stand with Republicans in Albany to speak about state law in New York could be seen as a fool’s errand by some. Republicans are in the minority in both chambers and have virtually no power to get bills passed without support from Democrats.

“Those folks you were standing with have no power to do anything in this building so why are you standing next to people that are powerless,” said state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, also a Democrat from the Bronx.