The reaction to the mayor’s deal with the Trump administration to re-open ICE immigration operations on Rikers Island has sparked sharp division, with angry opposition among advocates and support in law enforcement circles.
Coincidentally, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in a trailer on Rikers Island was shut down on another Valentine’s Day 10 years ago during the de Blasio administration, according to Yasmine Farhang of the Immigration Defense Project.
“ICE had for years held court at Rikers, funneling thousands of New Yorkers into mass detention and deportation, tearing apart families and violating human rights,” Farhang said. “We (now) have a mayor attempting to flout our laws by partnering up with this cruel federal administration.”
Following a meeting Thursday with ICE acting director Tom Homan, Mayor Adams said he will issue an executive order to reopen the unit with a focus on “investigations of violent criminals and gangs.”
That element appears to be new. In the past, former correction officers said, the main focus was notifying the feds when someone with an immigration detainer was about to be released, rather than conducting joint investigations.
“If one of our inmates had an ICE warrant, we would not let them go. We would hold them until they were picked up,” said retired assistant deputy warden Joseph Russo, a 27-year veteran. “The mayor’s change on this seems to be political, but I’m happy that he’s now motivated to do it.”
Sidney Schwartzbaum, a former president of the Assistant Deputy Wardens/Deputy Wardens Association, said correction officers who released someone with an immigration detainer were often faced 30-day suspensions.
“It was unusual for them (ICE) to get involved in criminal investigations in the jails unless it involved a major drug cartel,” he said, echoing the views of two retired gang investigators who spoke with The News.
Adams is facing intense criticism that the executive order is effectively a quid pro quo that compromises his independence after Trump’s Justice Department said it would move to dismiss his criminal indictment on bribery charges.
Gov. Hochul called the allegations “extremely serious” and the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, and several prosecutors resigned in protest over the DOJ’s demand for a dismissal.
On Friday afternoon, Adams put out a statement saying he did not “trade my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”
But Redmond Haskins, a spokesman for the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement the Rikers plan is an “egregious violation of New York’s commitment as a sanctuary city.”
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
Anti-Eric Adams protestors rally outside City Hall on Friday. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
“We are immensely concerned by Mayor Adams’ seeming embrace of the new administration’s draconian immigration policies—policies that City Hall should be rejecting in the strongest possible terms,” he said.
Darren Mack of Freedom Agenda, an advocacy group, said that “Sending legally innocent people there to be picked off by ICE is yet another reason Rikers needs to close as quickly as possible.”
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
Anti-Eric Adams protestors rally outside City Hall on Friday. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said the order is only a return to an arrangement with ICE that existed from 2003 to 2015.
“Come into the country legally. If you’ve been in our system, if you’ve committed a heinous crime, then let ICE do their job and get them out of our system and out of our country,” Boscio said, noted the union has not been fully briefed on the entire scope of the plan.
To some extent, the borders of the overall plan seem to be somewhat elastic.
On Friday, Mayor Adams appeared on Fox and Friends with Homan and suggested he wanted the city to cooperate with ICE “even on civil enforcement,” though hours later his press team sought to clarify the mayor’s position on that. “I am not opening the door to civil immigration enforcement with the federal government,” he said, in a statement.
The NYPD quickly issued a statement saying the department “does not engage in civil immigration enforcement, period.”
“The NYPD does engage in criminal enforcement matters, as it always has, regardless of a person’s immigration status, including work on federal criminal task forces,” the statement said.
Thomas Tracy and Chris Sommerfeldt contributed to this story.
Originally Published:
