In a sign of increasing cooperation with Donald Trump’s anti-immigration plans, New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, is weighing whether to allow the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) to re-establish an office at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail.
An Ice office there closed in 2015 under sanctuary laws that severely limit the city’s involvement with federal immigration enforcement. Having a facility at the jail would make it easier for federal agents to deport people held there before they can be released on to the streets.
In addition, Adams has enraged immigration advocates by issuing guidance to all city agencies making it easier for Ice officers to go into what had previously been designated as sensitive locations, such as schools, migrant shelters, churches and hospitals.
Under current law, signed by the former mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City police and corrections officers do not usually cooperate with Ice enforcement, and Ice is prohibited from many locations except when they have a warrant signed by a judge that alleges a serious crime has been committed.
“I cannot have any city employee that will get in the way of [Ice] carrying out their job as a federal authority. That would be irresponsible for me,” Adams said last Sunday in an interview on the WABC Latino-issues program Tiempo.
Whether Adams has executive authority to reopen an Ice facility at Rikers remains unclear, but he discussed the possibility in a 12 December meeting with Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar”, who told the New York Post at the time that the mayor has done “a complete 180” on immigration policy in terms of being willing to cooperate with the federal government.
Adams went out of his way to meet Trump after the election and establish a warm relationship with the Republican now president and his team, in an unlikely alliance.
The mayor has been struggling amid a sprawling federal corruption investigation that has cost him key lieutenants and resulted in the mayor himself being indicted last September, accused of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions.
On Monday, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) ordered federal prosecutors to drop the criminal charges against Adams, in a stunning intervention supposedly because it was restricting him from immigration enforcement.
Meanwhile, a recently leaked Adams memo to all city agencies, including those overseeing schools, hospitals and shelters, appeared to allow Ice officers to enter previously restricted premises even without a warrant if staffers at the place being raided “reasonably feel threatened or fear for [their] safety or the safety of others”.
The memo, first reported by the local outlet Hell Gate, provoked fears that Ice agents will more readily use threatening behavior in order to gain warrantless access.
The Adams administration later issued updated guidelines that align better with sanctuary laws and removed the phrase about staffers fearing for their safety. It also advised staffers to call general counsel, take photos of the officer’s ID and warrant and avoid altercations with agents.
“We will not put a frontline worker in harm’s way and subject to arrest by federal officers simply by doing their job,” said the city’s corporation counsel, Muriel Goode-Trufant, who issued the video and flowchart with new guidelines that she said apply to many city agencies.
Advocates say Adams’s belated affirmation of sanctuary laws seems weak at best.
Murad Awawdeh, director of the New York Immigration Coalition, issued a statement that Adams’s “dangerous” policy “will further force families into the shadows and leave countless New Yorkers vulnerable to detention and deportation simply for accessing basic services”. He called on Adams to reverse the policy or face a lawsuit.
As some New Yorkers live in fear after recent Ice raids that have reportedly scooped up at least 100 residents, Adams has insisted that all New Yorkers should continue sending kids to school and using city services when needed.
“You know, we’re hearing over and over rumors of Ice raiding schools – didn’t happen,” he told WABC. “We’re hearing over and over again, Ice raiding shelters – didn’t happen,” he said. He accused the media of “feeding hysteria”.
Ice re-establishing a presence at Rikers is a risk to due process, advocates say.
Adams has repeatedly talked of changing laws that protect migrants, cooperating more closely with Ice and expelling criminal migrants. But it is far from clear how many convicted criminals have been arrested so far during high-profile Ice raids. And, at Rikers Island, the vast majority of those held at the jail have not been convicted of their charges. In August 2023, 87% of its approximately 6,000 detainees were there pre-trial, according to a city comptroller report.
The New York City-based Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) has worked since 2008 to “disentangle Ice from the criminal legal system” and stop what it called a jail-to-deportation pipeline.
“As the Trump administration’s goals of causing panic and fear while carrying out harmful detention is happening in New York and around our country, we are more concerned than ever about the mayor’s persistent claims that he will seek to roll back laws our communities have long relied on to feel safe,” said Yasmine Farhang, director of advocacy at IDP.
The notorious 10-jail complex at Rikers Island faces longstanding problems and is under federal receivership due to concerns with understaffing, corruption, violence and suicide by detainees. The complex is slated to close in 2027, though the timeline for construction of the replacement borough-based jails remains unclear.
Those in favor of housing Ice at Rikers argue that it provides efficient access to information on detainees’ backgrounds and criminal histories, and gives the agency the ability to conduct deportations before detainees re-enter the public.
The Ice New York field office did not respond to requests for comment.
“Reestablishing the Ice ERO [enforcement and removal operations] unit at Rikers would allow ERO NYC officers to take direct custody of foreign-born criminal offenders without the need to re-apprehend these criminals at large in the community,” Todd Lyons, assistant director of field operations, wrote on his LinkedIn page in December.
In years past, Ice housed something called its criminal alien program at Rikers, which focuses on deporting undocumented people who are deemed to pose a risk to public safety. But the De Blasio-era sanctuary laws barred Ice from all city corrections facilities starting in 2015.
“Our city is not served when New Yorkers with strong ties in the community are afraid to engage with law enforcement because they fear deportation,” said De Blasio in announcing the new law in November 2014.
Today, Adams’s discussion of reopening Ice at Rikers was “one more example of the city trying to use city resources to further Ice’s agenda”, said Rosa Cohen-Cruz, director of immigration policy for the Bronx Defenders advocacy group.
Cohen-Cruz pointed to research such as a 2022 study by the University of Texas at Austin, showing that sanctuary city policies increase community safety because immigrants are more willing to engage with government, political systems and important local services.
Cohen-Cruz said that since most held at Rikers are either awaiting trial or charged with misdemeanors, Ice interactions could delay or deny their due-process rights.
“It really does impact communities and create distrust between communities and state and local actors,” she said. “We want to make sure that immigrants know they can interact with the government and not fear that their information will be shared with Ice,” she said.
The IDP and Bronx Defenders are calling on the city council to pass a new law giving individuals the right to sue if they believe an immigration detention violates their rights.
Farhang said: “Our local agencies must be held accountable to abiding by our immigrant protective laws, and under this mayoral administration it is more critical than ever to have a remedy in place when they are violated.”
Late on Wednesday, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced that the Trump administration was suing New York state over its immigration policies, accusing state officials of choosing “to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens”.
In particular, Bondi said she was out to end New York’s “green light” law, which allows people in the state to get a driver’s license without citizenship or legal residency status.
Last week the justice department sued Chicago and the state of Illinois, accusing authorities there of impeding Trump’s anti-immigration push.
