A New York judge blocked Mayor Eric Adams’ office and New York City’s Department of Correction from implementing an executive order allowing ICE agents to operate from Rikers Island.
State Supreme Court Judge Mary Rosado’s order says that New York City “officials, officers, personnel and agencies are prohibited from taking any steps towards negotiating, signing, or implementing” the directive. The judge’s order may be “extended, modified, or vacated” during Friday’s hearing on the case.
The order comes as the New York City Council sued Adams after he allowed ICE authorities to have a presence on Rikers Island after being absent from the area for a decade.
“Today, in New York City a corrupt bargain is taking place in plain view: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, acting through his first deputy mayor, is using his official powers to pay off the Trump Administration for dropping criminal charges against him,” the lawsuit said. “The ‘purchase price’ — which was agreed to in advance and is now being proffered — is the safety and well-being of immigrant communities and all New Yorkers whose rights are protected by our City’s prized sanctuary laws.”
The council sought to “stop Eric Adams’s flagrant abuse of the power of the mayoralty.”
Council Member Alexa Avilés, Chair of the Committee on Immigration, claimed upon the lawsuit’s filing that “[t]urning Rikers into an outpost for the Trump administration’s extreme agenda has nothing to do with protecting New Yorkers and everything to do with the Mayor protecting himself.”
In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed laws limiting New York City’s cooperation with federal immigration practices, ending the ability for ICE to be present at Rikers Island.
