(The Center Square) — The Democratic-led New York City Council is planning to challenge Mayor Eric Adams’ move to allow federal immigration agents to open an office at the Rikers Island prison, which they argue runs afoul of the city’s sanctuary policies.
On Thursday, the City Council passed a resolution Thursday authorizing Speaker Adrienne Adams to sue to “defend” against the Adams administration’s “illegal” executive order and to “curb the Trump administration’s attacks on the city’s local laws, residents, public fisc, or way of life.”
Speaker Adams, a Democrat who is running for mayor, accused the mayor of “selling out New Yorkers in exchange for the dismissal of his federal corruption case” by opening up the prison to ICE agents after the Trump administration agreed to drop federal bribery and corruption charges against the Democrat.
“The mayor is putting his personal interest in Trump’s extremist agenda above our city’s and New Yorkers,” Speaker Adams said in remarks on Thursday. “It is the Council’s responsibility to stand up for New Yorkers, and we intend to continue doing so.”
The threat of legal action comes just two days after the Adams administration signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to set up office space on the island, which houses city jails.
The order, signed Tuesday by New York City’s First Deputy Mayor Randy Maestro, argues federal agents are needed on Rikers to help the city combat “violent transnational gangs and criminal enterprises,” citing the Trump administration’s recent designation of MS-13 and Tren del Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations. It does not give ICE permission to carry out civil immigration enforcement or arrest people just for being undocumented.
However, the move re-establishes ICE at the prison after a decade-long hiatus, officials said. Federal immigration agents have been prohibited from having an office on Rikers since the city passed a bill in 2014 that restricts cooperation between ICE officials and the city’s Department of Correction.
Mayor Adams, who is running for reelection as an independent candidate after bailing from the Democratic Party primary, delegated the role of enforcing the order to Maestro to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest over his federal indictment being dropped.
Immigrant rights groups, who have also criticized Adams’ executive order, are also expected to file legal challenges arguing that the move violates the city’s sanctuary laws and inmates’ due process rights.
