In a sign of increasing cooperation with Donald Trump’s anti-immigration plans, the Republican administration’s hardline so-called border czar, Tom Homan, met with New York’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams on Thursday as the White House pushes for more detaining and deporting of immigrants, especially those accused of crimes.
Adams did not address reporters following the closed-door talks with Homan at a federal office building in New York. Both men left the meeting in vehicles.
Besides discussing immigration, Adams had said before the meeting that he intended to bring up the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) move on Wednesday to claw back more than $80m it had previously paid the city to help defray the cost of sheltering more homeless migrants.
US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (Ice) officials have long had a contentious relationship with New York, which has sanctuary laws that limit police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Adams has controversially said he favors loosening those “sanctuary” policies, but he does not have the broad power to do so as mayor.
He is under strong pressure to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, in what appears to be a carrot-and-stick approach – with money being withdrawn but at the same time the Department of Justice (DoJ) intervening with federal prosecutors in Manhattan and ordering them to drop a criminal corruption case against Adams.
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 DoJ ordered federal prosecutors to drop the indictment against Adams, in a stunning intervention, saying it was restricting him from immigration enforcement.
This last move from Washington prompted the Manhattan US attorney in charge of the case to resign on Thursday.
Republican members of New York’s city council who met separately with Homan on Thursday prior to his meeting with Adams said Homan hoped the mayor would support efforts to roll back sanctuary protections.
“He’s expecting cooperation,” council member Bob Holden said of Homan.
Adams has already ordered city officials to lawfully cooperate with Trump’s agenda.
In what is now developing into an unusual series of rendezvous, Homan and Adams held a meeting last December before Trump took office, from which emerged the news that Adams was weighing whether to allow Ice to re-establish an office at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail.
An Ice office there closed in 2015 under sanctuary laws. Current law explicitly bans Ice authorities from having an office tasked with enforcement duties on department of corrections property.
However, proponents of the idea say 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.
While Adams has not publicly discussed the Rikers idea since December, he recently enraged immigration advocates after a leaked memo revealed guidance appearing to make it easier for Ice officers to go into what had previously been designated as sensitive locations, such as schools, migrant shelters, churches and hospitals – only to have to walk back some of the policy language later after an outcry.
“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.
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.
Advocates say Adams’s stance on sanctuary laws seems weak at best.
Murad Awawdeh, director of the New York Immigration Coalition, issued a statement that Adams’s “dangerous” policy on Ice access to sensitive locations “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 completely 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 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.
Adams’s December 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 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.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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