Mayor Eric Adams of New York City announced on Thursday that he would issue an executive order to allow federal immigration authorities into the Rikers Island jail complex, a significant shift in the city’s sanctuary policies.
The mayor said that he would move to allow Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents into the jail to assist in criminal investigations, “in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs.”
The move followed a meeting earlier Thursday between Mr. Adams, a Democrat, and President Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, in Lower Manhattan. The meeting was seen as an early test of the mayor’s relationship with the Trump administration, and of the degree to which Mr. Adams might owe some fealty after the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against the mayor.
Emil Bove III, the acting deputy attorney general who requested the dismissal, said on Monday that dropping the charges was necessary to free Mr. Adams to cooperate with the president’s immigration crackdown.
It was not immediately clear how exactly Mr. Adams’s executive order would comply with the city’s sanctuary status, which sharply limits its cooperation with the enforcement of federal immigration laws. ICE used to have offices on Rikers Island, allowing it to easily transfer undocumented immigrants jailed there to ICE custody, until the city passed sanctuary laws in 2014 banning ICE from the jail complex.
Under one of the 2014 laws, federal immigration authorities are prohibited from having offices on Department of Corrections property for the purpose of enforcing civil immigration law.
Mr. Adams also said that he and Mr. Homan discussed ways to embed more police detectives in federal task forces focused on gangs and criminal activities.
The mayor is likely to run into opposition from the City Council, which is controlled by left-leaning Democrats who have vocally opposed the mayor’s desire to change the city’s sanctuary laws.
“I’m asking, give us a presence back at Rikers Island,” Mr. Homan told Newsmax after he met with the mayor on Thursday morning. “That’s something the mayor committed to today.”
The post Mayor Adams to Sign Order Allowing ICE Agents Into Rikers Island appeared first on New York Times.
