New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday he will use his executive powers to allow federal immigration authorities back into the city’s sprawling Rikers Island jail complex, marking a substantial shift in the city’s sanctuary policies that prevent it from enforcing immigration law.
“We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island — as was the case for 20 years,” Adams said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
The announcement, sure to ignite a political backlash among members of the City Council and political rivals, comes hours after Adams’ meeting with border czar Tom Homan.
On Friday, Adams said he wants more cooperation between the city and federal agencies on immigration issues, claiming members of the city government he called “far-left” are trying to stop him.
A 2014 sanctuary law removed ICE from the jail complex, and ICE’s office was officially closed in 2015. About a decade after the ban, Adams said the executive order will specify that federal officers on jail grounds limit their cooperation to investigations that focus on criminal and gang activity. The mayor also said he would direct the correctional intelligence bureau to cooperate with ICE.
“Let’s be clear – I’m not standing in the way. I’m collaborating against so many others who don’t want to collaborate,” the mayor said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends.”
The mayor’s executive order could face a legal challenge from the City Council, which has been critical of the mayor’s stance. Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmembers Alexa Avilés and Sandy Nurse said Thursday they will determine the council’s formal response based on the executive order.
“The mayor’s announcement of the intention to issue an executive order that allows the Trump administration access to Rikers is concerning, but we must see language of any purported executive order to evaluate its legality,” they said in a joint statement.
The Trump Administration’s focus on the Big Apple is clear from multiple legal moves over the last few days. The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Adams so he can better help their immigration crackdown and on Wednesday announced a lawsuit against New York state officials over so-called sanctuary policies that limit the state’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
The directive has led to a series of high-profile resignations in the Justice Department. Adams is also under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and political opponents who say the dismissal could make Adams beholden to the Trump administration. The order says the charges should be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning they could be refiled at a later date.
Further, FEMA clawed back more than $80 million intended to help house migrants in NYC – a move that city financial watchdog Brad Lander described as a “highway robbery” of money allocated by Congress more than two years ago.
The Homan and Adams meeting on immigration enforcement Thursday came as the mayor faces key questions about how closely he works with the Trump administration ahead of a Democratic primary election in June. It also signaled how the Trump administration has its eyes on the country’s biggest city to carry out its immigration enforcement plans.
Adams vowed to increase cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies. “There’s some cases where he’s going to have to go around the laws in this city,” Adams told CNN affiliate WCBS, referring to Homan. “He’s gonna have to utilize his power. He has the power, as the border czar and ICE, to institute civil enforcement. I can’t do that, and we were honest about that.”
Adams, who is facing pressure from the Trump administration to help enact its immigration agenda, said they discussed ways to embed more New York Police Department detectives into federal task forces targeting “violent gangs and criminal activity.” Earlier this month, the Nassau County Police Department instituted a similar program in which local detectives were embedded with ICE.
“Keeping the 8.3 million New Yorkers who call our city home safe is — and will always remain — our administration’s North Star,” Adams said.
Embedding police into federal task forces “is in direct violation of both our city’s laws and the mayor’s moral obligation to protect New Yorkers,” said Make the Road New York, one of the largest migrant advocacy organizations in the state.
Adams willing to work with administration
Elected as a Democrat in 2021, Adams entered office as the self-proclaimed “Biden of Brooklyn,” but he began to sharply criticize the former president’s immigration policies amid an influx of new migrants that strained local resources and cost the city billions of dollars. Adams said the burden of the migrant crisis could “destroy” New York, and last year he called for drastic changes to the city’s sanctuary policies.
He has cozied up to Trump in more recent months, and first met with Homan in December to discuss coming immigration policies.
“Tom Homan was angry at the mayor because the mayor had promised him when they met in December to do certain things, and he said, ‘the mayor has done none of that,’” said Councilmember Robert Holden, a Democrat who often aligns with Republicans, after the Council’s Common Sense Caucus met with Homan Thursday.
As a sanctuary city jurisdiction, New York City has laws on its books preventing the New York City Police Department from cooperating in the enforcement of immigration law except in specific circumstances and some violent crimes.
Proponents of sanctuary city policies have long argued the policies ultimately make cities safer for everyone, including migrant communities who are often vulnerable to crime and fear speaking to law enforcement.
Adams has made it clear he believes the city’s sanctuary laws go too far and has said he is open to increasing cooperation with federal law enforcement. That cooperation would require a change in legislation and support in the City Council.
Kayla Mamelak, spokesperson for Adams, said Wednesday the city is hoping to “increase collaboration across law enforcement agencies” specifically to target violent gang activity in the city.
“Mayor Adams has also been clear that he wants to work with the new federal administration, not war with them,” Mamelak said in a statement. “We will continue to explore all lawful processes to remove violent migrants from our city.”
Allowing access to Rikers Island is one key way he says he’ll work with the Trump administration.
“Getting back in Rikers Island is a game changer,” said Homan, sitting side-by-side with Adams in the Fox studio.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice moved to drop the corruption charges that had been hanging over Adams’ head for months. In a two-page memo Monday, Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, to dismiss the charges, saying the case has “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to … illegal immigration and violent crime.”
On Tuesday, the mayor praised the DOJ’s decision to drop the corruption case against him, saying he never broke the law or traded power for personal benefit.
“I believe that the AG has made it clear that she’s going after weaponization of the Justice Department, and I encourage — and as they say, I’m Eric Adams and I approve of that message,” Adams told CNN affiliate WNBC Thursday.
Sassoon resigned from her position in a letter to the attorney general, according to a person familiar with the matter.
When asked by CNN affiliate WCBS whether he feels an obligation to cooperate with Trump’s team because of what happened in his criminal case, Adams said cooperating with the President is part of his job as mayor of New York City.
“Think about this for a moment. Was I cooperative with the previous administration? I called myself the Biden of Brooklyn, I mean, who are we kidding here? I’m the mayor of the largest city in America. How irresponsible will it be for me not to speak to the President of the United States and his administration? I was clear, I’m not here to war with the president, I’m here to work with the president,” Adams said.
On Friday, Adams told Fox there was no “quid pro quo” to get the Department of Justice to drop the charges in exchange for his cooperation on immigration enforcement, but he argued that fighting the legal case was a distraction from his ability to focus on law enforcement.
“If I can’t coordinate that, that’s a public safety issue, and we should put public safety first,” he said.
He also told WCBS he is discussing other areas of cooperation with Trump’s team but wants to “make sure they pass the legal smell test” before announcing them publicly.
DOJ sues over state’s Green Light Law
The DOJ lawsuit specifically targets the Green Light Law, also known as the Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act, which was passed into law in 2019. The law allows some undocumented migrants to obtain driver’s licenses and prevents immigration enforcement agencies from accessing the state’s motor vehicle information database.
More than 15 states and Washington, DC, allow undocumented people to obtain driver’s licenses, according to United We Dream, a nonprofit immigration advocacy group.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday the Trump administration has filed the suit against Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James and other state officials.
“This is a new DOJ, and we are taking steps to protect Americans, American citizens and Angel Moms,” Bondi said at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, DC, referring to the mothers of people who are killed by undocumented immigrants.
“If you don’t comply with federal law, we will hold you accountable,” Bondi said. “We did it to Illinois, strike one. Strike two is New York, and if you are a state not complying with federal law, you’re next.”
The 16-page complaint filed in the Northern District of New York says the Green Light Law obstructs federal immigration enforcement by restricting the sharing of records with federal immigration agencies; the government argues that is a violation of the Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution, which says federal law takes precedence over state laws and constitutions.
In filing the suit, the Department of Justice is seeking a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to prevent New York officials from enforcing the law. Additionally, the department is asking the court to declare the law unconstitutional.
“By intent and design, the Green Light Law is a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws, and the federal authorities that administer them,” the complaint reads. “More than that, the Law has had dangerous consequences—precisely because it has worked as intended.”
In December, Kenneth Genalo, then the head of the New York City ICE field office and now the acting deputy director of ICE, told CNN the Green Light law had restricted its ability to run license plates.
“During our investigations, during surveillance, if we come across individuals that we’re targeting that someone’s in a vehicle, we are unable to ascertain who the vehicle belongs to, because they removed our ability to get that information from New York DMV,” he said.
State officials pushed back on the suit and defended the constitutionality of the law.
In a statement, Hochul noted the Green Light Law has stood up to previous legal challenges and said the law does in fact allow officers to access information, as long as they have a warrant.
“Here are the facts: our current laws allow federal immigration officials to access any DMV database with a judicial warrant,” Hochul said in a statement. “That’s a common-sense approach that most New Yorkers support. But there’s no way I’m letting federal agents, or Elon Musk’s shadowy DOGE operation, get unfettered access to the personal data of any New Yorker in the DMV system like 16-year-old kids learning to drive and other vulnerable people.”
James said she planned to fight the suit in a statement Wednesday evening.
“Our state laws, including the Green Light law, protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe,” she said. “I am prepared to defend our laws, just as I always have.”
Hochul had been set to meet with Trump on Thursday but postponed the meeting hours after Bondi announced the lawsuit.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Kara Scannell, Mark Morales, Lex Harvey, Shimon Prokupecz and Andy Rose contributed to this report.
