The Adams administration’s recent decision to allow federal immigration authorities to station on Rikers Island drew severe criticism and resistance from legal experts, advocates and other public officials.
Officially, Executive Order 50 would allow federal law enforcement, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to establish offices on Rikers Island for joint investigations with the NYC Department of Corrections’ (DOC) Intelligence Bureau to investigate “transnational” organized crime.
But opponents fear the order will aid the broader national crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration, even though it does not technically greenlight city jail staff to collaborate with federal agencies on deportations, which are civil matters.
On Tuesday, April 15, the New York City Council filed a lawsuit to block Adams’ executive order for ICE to operate on Rikers Island. In 2014, a law was enacted to prevent federal immigration authorities like ICE from setting up offices or quarters on NYC Department of Corrections (DOC) property for civil matters like deportations.
Six other federal law enforcement agencies “deputized” by the Trump administration to handle similar immigration enforcement could also be housed on Rikers under the executive order, according to the legal memo.
The council accused Mayor Eric Adams’ order of being “tainted by the conflict of interest created by the corrupt bargain the mayor entered into — his personal freedom in exchange for an ICE office,” pointing to his recently dropped charges for a federal corruption case and meetings with. Additionally, the council passed a resolution last week allowing Speaker Adrienne Adams to litigate against sanctuary law violations.
“When New Yorkers are afraid of cooperating with our city’s own police and discouraged from reporting crime and seeking help, it makes everyone in our city less safe,” said Speaker Adams in her statement.
“This is a naked attempt by Eric Adams to fulfill his end of the bargain for special treatment he received from the Trump administration. New York cannot afford its mayor colluding with the Trump administration to violate the law, and this lawsuit looks to the court to uphold the basic standard of democracy, even if our mayor won’t.”
Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for the administration, says Adams delegated “all powers, responsibilities, and decision-making” regarding stationing federal agencies like ICE on Rikers Island to Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, who conducted an independent assessment.
“Cooperation with federal law enforcement — including the FBI, DEA, ATF, Homeland Security, and U.S. Postal Inspectors — will be expressly limited to criminal law enforcement investigations, not civil matters,” said Mamelak over email. “Executive Order 50 is expressly authorized by New York City’s local laws — the very laws enacted by the City Council. While we will review the lawsuit, this one seems baseless and contrary to the public interest in protecting New Yorkers from violent criminals.”
Mastro, who currently sits in for Adams as the mayor visits the Dominican Republic to pay his respects for the recently deadly nightclub collapse, maintains compliance. “Local Law 58 of 2014 … allows federal immigration authorities to maintain office space on land over which DOC has jurisdiction for purposes unrelated to the enforcement of civil immigration laws,” reads the ex-Giuliani aide’s executive order.
Previously joint efforts between the DOC and ICE cost the city up to $92.5 million in settlement money over allegations of unlawfully extending detainments of non-citizens held on Rikers Island at the behest of federal immigration agents between 1997 and 2012.
Five of the city’s legal defense organizations — The Legal Aid Society, New York County Defender Services (NDS), The Bronx Defenders, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and Queens Defenders — also protested the order by invoking the constitutional rights of every client present and future in DOC custody.
NDS’s Piyali Basak and Scott Foletta say the executive order could have far-reaching effects on not only Harlemites held on Rikers, but for the community as a whole.
“It’s just another way in which people have to worry about all these ways in which their lives already get entangled with the criminal legal system [by] being just another way that connects them further to the deportation systems,” said Foletta, NDS’ immigration director. “Even though we have sanctuary laws that try to prevent our tax dollars and our city resources and state resources being used to deport people, we see very targeted attacks by the Trump administration against sanctuary laws here and in other cities and states to try to cut down that connection.”
“People are scared to help each other,” added Basak, NDS’ managing director. “How are we going to uplift communities if within communities, people don’t trust each other?”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
It seems to me that Democratic politicians at the federal, state, and local levels crave dystopia or have a death wish for their nation, state, or municipality. How else can one explain Democrat attempts to throw a wrench in the gears of law enforcement as well as push for as much immigration (of literally anybody) as they can possibly achieve, legal or illegal, skilled or unskilled.