By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had a productive meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, discussing issues including housing and the detention by federal immigration agents of a Columbia University student.
It marked the second meeting between the two men since Mamdani's mayoral election win late last year. Mamdani is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican.
Mamdani posted a photo of himself with Trump on social
media after the meeting. "I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon. I'm looking forward to building more housing in New York City," Mamdani wrote on X.
Mamdani said he raised concerns with Trump about the detention on Thursday of Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva from Azerbaijan by ICE and that Trump later informed him that she will be "released imminently."
After the meeting, the student posted on Instagram that she had been released.
While both men have been critical of each other's policy positions in the past and hold radically different worldviews, their previous meeting in November was unexpectedly friendly.
In their first meeting too, Mamdani and Trump had spoken about bringing down the price of housing. A former real estate developer, Trump had brightened at Mamdani's call for more housing in New York.
Making housing more affordable has been one of Trump's pledges ahead of the midterm elections in late 2026 as prices for housing remain significantly higher than they were a few years ago. Cost of living and affordability were also issues at the heart of Mamdani's mayoral victory.
Trump reiterated his pledge in his State of the Union speech this week and has announced a few policies aimed at addressing the problem. Still, U.S. mortgage rates remain high and the housing supply in most of the country is short of what is needed to meet demand. This leaves the cost of home ownership increasingly out of reach for families whose incomes are not well above the median.
Economists and trade groups also say Trump's aggressive trade and immigration policies have raised prices for building materials and appliances and undercut labor supply, making it harder for builders to ramp up housing construction.
Mamdani has criticized Trump's hardline immigration crackdown, in particular his use of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, along with the president's policies towards Israel's war in Gaza.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Daphne Psaledakis and Susan Heavey, editing by Michelle Nichols and David Gregorio)
