Zohran Mamdani's reported favor line to the White House may have just gone dead thanks to Stephen Miller.
The communist New York City mayor has quietly been asking President Trump's team to release individuals held in ICE custody, according to a Monday report from Politico.
Sources and quotes from Mamdani himself show that his inexplicably cordial relationship with the President had previously expanded into an open line of communication on specific immigration enforcement issues. According to Politico, that communication came through former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
It began in February, when Mamdani persuaded Trump during a White House sit-down to free Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva, who had been detained by federal immigration agents earlier in the day.
Mamdani pointed to her release as proof that his surprising relationship with Trump could deliver for New Yorkers. What nobody knew at the time was that he kept going back to the well.
Mamdani has quietly asked Trump to release dozens of detained immigrants https://t.co/wdgMigfw4u
— POLITICO (@politico) November 9, 2026
Since then, Mamdani and his staff have handed Trump's team the names of about two dozen more immigrant New Yorkers in ICE custody and asked the president to order their release, according to two people with knowledge of the outreach. The most recent list reportedly came during Mamdani's September meeting with Trump at Gracie Mansion.
Of course, this whole tale rests on two anonymous sources, and even Politico admits it can't confirm that a single name on that list has walked free. That's an odd result for a president who is supposedly listening to favor requests. And the lack of tangible results fits the man who has made mass deportations the centerpiece of his agenda.
Mamdani's aides allegedly worked the requests mostly through Wiles, who has since left the White House. Aside from Aghayeva, Politico claims Mamdani was able "to secure a short-term visa for a woman from Ghana whose son was fatally shot in the Bronx."
"Other than that, not much substantive has materialized between the two ..." the outlet adds.
“Over the course of these conversations, we have been able to free a New Yorker from ICE detention," Mamdani said in an interview with Fox News. "We have been able to secure a visa for a grieving mother who would otherwise have to watch her son be buried from thousands of miles away."
The game, though, has apparently shifted with President Trump's move to name Miller his new Chief of Staff, replacing Wiles. As expected, Miller is making many people on the left nervous.
And that includes Mamdani's team, who fear the hardline immigration-enforcement advocate will be less responsive to requests from Gracie Mansion.
Politico reports there is growing concern inside the mayor's administration that whatever door of communication was open is now closing since it seems "unlikely that Miller, given his posture on immigration, will keep playing ball in the same way Wiles did."
Good. Miller is making the right people antsy.
Murad Awawdeh, a close Mamdani ally, had a strange way of trying to keep their foot in the door.
“Stephen Miller is a cruel man who has spent his career targeting immigrants, but he is not the president. Donald Trump is, and the deportation agenda is his,” he said. “New York expects the president to work with the mayor, deliver for this city, and end the terror in our neighborhoods. Promoting Miller changes none of that.”
New York shouldn't "expect" anything, and I'm not sure the right approach to keep a cordial relationship alive is to insult the new Chief of Staff.
Trump, for his part, has come out and reiterated his tough stance on criminal illegal aliens.
"We have a very strong deportation policy, there's no amnesty, there's no anything, we keep that," he told reporters. "But, we focus on the worst of the worst. We want the murderers out. We've gotten most of them out ... We want to get the worst of the worst, and then we'll see what happens."
Mamdani has supposedly been slipping names to the White House, but the guy answering the phone now is Miller. Something tells me that list is headed straight for the shredder.