New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he plans to issue an executive order allowing federal immigration authorities to investigate criminals and gangs on Rikers Island.
Adams, who met with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan and local federal law enforcement officials, said the discussion focused on how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can "remove violent migrant gangs from our city."
"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 — but now, instead, ICE agents would specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs," Adams said.
ICE was established in 2003 and likely had a presence in the city from around 2005. ICE agents have not been able to operate in the jail complex since 2014, when the city revoked their ability to maintain officers under former mayor Bill de Blasio.
Adams also said they discussed ways to embed more New York Police Department detectives into federal task forces.
Meanwhile, Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, and five officials with the federal public integrity unit quit on Thursday after the Justice Department ordered federal corruption charges against Adams to be dropped, according to the New York Times.
Sassoon, in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, said that the DOJ's order to dismiss Adams' case was “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”
The letter also included new revelations. Sassoon wrote that her office had proposed a superseding indictment against the mayor that would have added a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. The charge would have been “based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the F.B.I.” It would also have included additional accusations about his “participation in a straw donor scheme.”
The mayor's meeting with Homan, his decision to reinstate ICE agents at Rikers and Sassoon's resignation sparked a flurry of debate.
Governor Kathy Hochul, when asked about her ability to remove Adams from his position on MSNBC, said the newly revealed allegations she read in Sassoon's letter were "extremely concerning and serious."
"But I cannot, as the governor of this state, have a knee jerk, politically motivated reaction like a lot of other people are saying right now. I have to do what's smart, what's right, and I'm consulting with other leaders in government at this time," she said on the Rachel Maddow show.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Council Member Alexa Avilés, chair of the Committee on Immigration and Council Member Sandy Nurse, chair of the Committee on Criminal Justice, said they will wait to comment on the legality of the executive order until it is executed, but added that the mayor's decision only deepens their concern that the mayor "is prioritizing the interests of the Trump Administration" over those of New Yorkers.
"Today’s statement by the mayor only further connects it to the resignations at DOJ over the apparent quid pro quo identified by the recently resigned U.S. Attorney for the Southern District," the council members said through a statement.
Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition, said Adams was complicit to Trump's mission to implement mass deportations, in exchange for the recent withdrawal of corruption charges.
“Eric Adams has no integrity," he said. "He is purposely obfuscating ICE’s mandate at Rikers Island to do an end run around our local laws. By doing so, he just made himself complicit with the Trump administration’s detention to deportation pipeline in exchange for a Department of Justice promise to squash the five-count federal corruption charges against him."
The mayor, who spoke briefly at a minority- and women-owned business enterprise awards ceremony at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, said he was not "on a short lease."
"People say that, you know, you're now on a short lease, you're now under control, you're now this, you're now that, over and over again. People have forgotten who I am," Adams said. "Anyone who believe[s] I'm on a short leash, they need to go back and look at my history. I'm not new to this. I'm true to this."
