Three Freeze to Death as Hochul Focuses on ICE
I shared that the fastest way to help is for ICE to back off so people feel safe accessing warming centers, shelters, hospitals, and houses of worship.”
As a winter storm closed in on New York and temperatures plunged into life-threatening territory, Governor Kathy Hochul chose to frame emergency response through the lens of immigration politics.
In a post that quickly drew national attention, Hochul revealed that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had offered federal assistance ahead of the storm. The governor’s response was not to welcome additional resources or emphasize urgency, but instead to demand that Immigration and Customs Enforcement step aside.
Secretary Noem offered assistance to New York ahead of the impending snowstorm.⁰⁰I shared that the fastest way to help is for ICE to back off so people feel safe accessing warming centers, shelters, hospitals, and houses of worship.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) January 24, 2026
“Secretary Noem offered assistance to New York ahead of the impending snowstorm.
I shared that the fastest way to help is for ICE to back off so people feel safe accessing warming centers, shelters, hospitals, and houses of worship.”
The implication was clear. In Hochul’s telling, ICE activity, not the brutal cold, was the primary obstacle to public safety.
That message landed as New York City was already experiencing deadly consequences.
According to NBC New York, three people were found dead across the city early Saturday morning as temperatures dropped into the teens and wind chills hovered near zero.
Three people were found dead across New York City on Saturday, when temperatures had dropped down into the teens.
NYPD officials confirmed three bodies had been found, two in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, between 7 and 9 a.m. None of the bodies had physical signs of trauma and investigators suspected each died from weather related circumstances, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The timing matters. These deaths were not spread out over days or tied to a single incident. All three bodies were discovered within a narrow two-hour window during the coldest part of the morning. Investigators quickly concluded that exposure, not violence, was the likely cause.
The details only deepen the contrast between the political messaging and the reality on the ground.
A 67 year old man was first discovered on a sidewalk around 7:45 a.m. on 3rd Avenue, police said. The second and third bodies were found almost two hours later.
Officials said a man in his 30s was spotted on an outdoor staircase at a building along Warren Street in Brooklyn. Across the borough in Canarsie, a woman in her 60s was discovered outside around the same time.
The city’s medical examiner will conduct individual investigations to determine the official causes of death for each of the people found Saturday morning.
City officials had declared a Code Blue, a designation intended to guarantee shelter access for anyone seeking it during extreme cold. Yet despite that policy, three people still died outdoors as New York entered what officials described as the coldest sustained stretch the city had experienced in years.
Against that backdrop, Hochul’s decision to make Immigration and Customs Enforcement the central villain of her emergency response messaging struck many as deeply misplaced.
The reaction online was swift.
More people are going to freeze to death in New York all because Kathy Hochul has TDS and hates the Trump admin. https://t.co/IAO8h6jX8X pic.twitter.com/v11fRdTj9w
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 25, 2026
“More people are going to freeze to death in New York all because Kathy Hochul has TDS and hates the Trump admin.”
Steve was not done with the NY Governor
Kathy Hochul is prioritizing politics over her constituents and people are already dying. pic.twitter.com/k2tQ9dASgd
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 25, 2026
“Kathy Hochul is prioritizing politics over her constituents and people are already dying.”
Others were more blunt, arguing that conditioning or rejecting federal assistance during a deadly blizzard out of hostility toward Donald Trump and ICE was reckless.
Turning down federal assistance in a deadly blizzard because you hate Trump and ICE https://t.co/zpN3fTm4Zf
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 25, 2026
“Turning down federal assistance in a deadly blizzard because you hate Trump and ICE.”
One post simply paired Hochul’s statement with the NBC headline, allowing the juxtaposition to speak for itself.
You sure showed her. https://t.co/UpwM9NPygu pic.twitter.com/VNmP2fFLHQ
— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) January 25, 2026
“You sure showed her.”
And then came the broader political observation that Democrats continue to avoid confronting.
How do these people keep losing to Donald Trump? It's a real mystery. https://t.co/dE6JaI2RqE
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) January 25, 2026
“How do these people keep losing to Donald Trump? It’s a real mystery.”
This is why. When leadership appears more animated by opposition to Trump and ICE than by the immediate reality of people freezing to death on city streets, voters notice. Ideology becomes the priority. Competence fades into the background. And the cost of that imbalance is not abstract.
Sometimes, it is measured in frozen sidewalks and bodies found before sunrise.
UPDATE:
The main DHS Twitter account called out Governor Hochul for her TDS and cruelty:
Secretary Noem approved $91,579,284.62 in FEMA funding to keep YOUR CITIZENS safe.
Please stop playing politics with the lives of New Yorkers. https://t.co/UjEsjgDyeo
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 25, 2026
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Comments
I don’t get it. Most of these people are from places with much more moderate climates than NYS. So, sending them home would save them from the cold, would it not? Hochul should be happy.
They died, swathed in the “warmth of collectivism.”
Expect numbers to increase, and not just in the winter.
Homeless die in winter. Its always happened and it probably always will. Many of the homeless are mentally ill and refuse shelter when offered. You can find numerous stories about this phenomenon over the years. This isn’t anything new.
Indeed, but collectivism didn’t protect them either. Forget free buses and have the cops pick up homeless people and bring them to heating centers.
Oh wait! Mamdani is cutting hours for the NYPD. Well, how about those social workers?
I don’t see anywhere that the three that died were illegals.
you know how the msm and stats will chalk this up to and teach it to the children:
“ice” kills 3 more
IMO a solid PR win would have the WH declare that the shelters won’t be targeted for immigration enforcement but that normal operations will continue. When ICE Jas Intel placing a ‘worst of the worst’ wantwd illegal alien criminal in a shelter they partner with local LEO to make the arrest. No ‘terrorizing raids’ BS narrative, just normal policing. A winter storm doesn’t confer immunity.
Local law enforcement are ordered to not help ICE, that’s the problem. If they were cooperating then ICE could pick the properly identified illegals with removal orders from the jail.
Bruh, that’s my point. Judo the inevitable ‘narrative’ creation of ‘mean old ICE might go arrest folks trying to keep warm in a shelter during the winter storm and Thai why folks are too.scared to go into the shelters’. Use the momentum to flip the argument on its head by offering to feed local LEO Intel on truly ‘worst of worst’ in shelters and refrain from conducting enforcement ops IN the shelters… IF and only IF the State and Local govt agrees to partner with ICE to remove the ‘worst of the worst’ instead of ICE.
The sanctuary found won’t agree which means they have grounds to whine when ICE sweeps the shelters both official shelters and ad hoc shelters to round up everyone without lawful basis to be in the USA.
While I don’t live in NY, it seems to me that Hochul is simultaneously devious while being incompetent.
OK, just say it — she’s Gargamel.
Three freeze to death as Hochul focuses on the wrong kind of ice
I had to travel to the big city this morning. Pretty quiet since it was a Sunday, it was snowing and it was eight degrees.
But that didn’t keep the panhandlers down. Oh, no sir. As I approached an intersection with a green light one of them stood in the middle of the road directly in front of me. When I swerved to go around him, he moved so he’d stay in my path.
Drug & alcohol abuse together with mental illness as deep as the Mariana trench are what kills the homeless, not ICE.
And thanks Kathy for reminding me how many innocent people the governor of New York is capable of killing when it suits him/her.
Kathy Hochul, working to out-Newsom Newsom every day.
She’s got a lot of competition now,
Before I retired, I was looking forward to traveling all through the US before I expired. However, now I must treat certain states as thought they are on the State Department’s Key Level 4: Do Not Travel Locations.
I travel I-10 and I-20 (excluding CA) exclusively, plus north to the National Parks in Utah, and that’s it. Southern NM doesn’t have the Albuquerque Taint, and the rest are very copacetic.
Now Marxhave 3 more bodies to add to their cause, as they charge opponents for their actions.
I’m sorry three humans died, but I’d bet they voted for her.
And I’d bet nobody told them.
US code stipulates that immigrants, specifically those seeking admission or adjustment of status, can be denied if they are deemed likely to become a “public charge.” People coming to this country should be productive, not homeless begging for shelter and food. Send them home.
72% of Somalis, on the dole.
Who thought that was a genius idea, Joe?
Clinton. This started back in the 90s.
Of course, most of the $91 million in aid will be skimmed off by NGOs, who will then give a percentage to the Democrats.
I think the homeless dead from exposure here in Anchorage is up to about 60 this winter, so far.