Mayor Eric Adams informed incoming border czar Tom Homan he desires to reopen the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace on Rikers Island — sparking swift outrage from immigration advocates and establishing an almost-certainly fierce combat with the Metropolis Council.
The mayor’s need to thaw the troubled jail advanced’s ICE workplace — recounted to The Publish by Homan — got here throughout a cordial face-to-face between the pair Thursday at Gracie Mansion targeted largely on sanctuary cities, deporting alleged felony migrants and discovering greater than 320,000 lacking migrant kids, sources stated.
The hardline Homan, who was handpicked by President-elect Donald Trump, stated he left the hour-long sit-down satisfied that the Democrat and former NYPD captain pulled a “full 180” on his beforehand progressive immigration views.
“I really imagine sitting down with him, I noticed the cop come out of him,” Homan informed The Publish Friday. “I feel he actually desires to assist with public security threats and he actually desires to assist discover these kids.”
Sources stated the newfound pals devoted “fairly a bit” of speak to reopening the Rikers ICE workplace — which closed after a 2014 sanctuary metropolis legislation signed by then-Mayor Invoice de Blasio.
Adams’ chummy assembly with Homan and his obvious need to return ICE to Rikers prompted fierce condemnation from progressives.
Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala (D-Manhattan/Bronx) charged that the mayor’s current feedback on immigration coverage verge on “harassment of those poor folks.”
“Fairly frankly, I’m dissatisfied about all the things that’s popping out of his mouth as of late. He wants to chop it out as a result of we’ll combat that vigorously and its going to be an issue,” she informed The Publish.
“Our mayor is totally out of contact with our personal legal guidelines, what he can and can’t do,” she added, “and he’s making the incorrect name.”
Ayala recounted a case from earlier than the ICE Rikers workplace closed in 2015 during which a teenager wrongly picked up for a homicide was nonetheless threatened with deportation by the feds.
“They launched him and handed him over to ICE, and so they take this child — who has no connection to his house nation, doesn’t even converse Spanish — however they had been threatening to deport him,” she stated. “This can solely occur extra.”
Frequent Adams foil Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) stated a authorized problem will certainly comply with any try by the mayor to reopen the ICE workplace.
He additionally pointedly threw Adams’ personal felony indictment again in his face.
“The very last thing New York Metropolis wants is ICE in faculties, shelters and jails advancing their mass deportation schemes,” he stated. “It’s clear Mayor Adams is extra excited by securing a pardon from the incoming Trump administration than defending immigrant New Yorkers and upholding our sanctuary metropolis legal guidelines.”
Adams stated he’ll direct his staff to discover methods to reopen the ICE workplace on the lockup utilizing an govt order, Homan stated.
“He would really like us to [reopen the ICE office], however he stated he’s received to speak to his authorized workers about what’s the potential of him doing that via govt order,” Homan stated of Adams.
Even when the ICE put up on Rikers was reopened, brokers would nonetheless be handcuffed with little energy to grab suspected migrant criminals below the de Blasio-era legislation.
The legislation bars federal immigration authorities from having places of work on metropolis Division of Correction grounds “for the aim of investigating attainable violations of civil immigration legislation.”
A mayor can, utilizing an govt order, greenlight a federal workplace on DOE property — however solely “for functions unrelated to the enforcement of civil immigration legal guidelines,” it states.
Hizzoner’s vow adopted a push — first by Councilmember Bob Holden (D-Queens), then by ICE honchos — to reopen the immigration workplace on Rikers Island.
Restoring the Rikers workplace would enable ICE officers to maintain foreign-born felony offenders behind bars earlier than deportation, they argued.
The ICE workplace — assuming the mayor can reopen it — would solely have the ability to deal with instances the place immigrants are held on a felony detainer after a conviction.
Councilwoman Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the felony justice committee overseeing Rikers, didn’t maintain again on her disgust on the concept of reviving the ICE workplace.
“Eric Adams is rolling out the purple carpet for the Trump administration and its Challenge 2025 agenda, starting with Trump’s harmful plan to tear aside households and abandon our immigrant neighborhood,” she stated.
“ICE already has the cooperation of town because it pertains to convicted people. This mayor is utilizing the GOP’s fear-mongering ways to serve his personal pursuits and to flee his personal soiled dealings. Maybe he ought to simply change events.”
Advocates with the New York Civil Liberties Union pointed to their assertion likewise condemning the mayor’s willingness to assist “Trump’s deportation machine.”
“Adams is manufacturing a pretend, sensationalist public security disaster,” stated Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU’s govt director. “In actuality, as metropolis information reveals and the Mayor has bragged, public security is definitely bettering, even with the rise in new arrivals.
“Adams flirting with the concept of undermining well-established legislation is political posturing that caters to Trump’s cruelty.”
The stance that Adams is advancing Trump’s immigration agenda was echoed by Homan and sources acquainted with their dialog.
“They agreed if New York Metropolis modified, then the remainder of the nation will comply with,” one supply stated.
Homan went additional, hinting that his sit-down with Adams paved the way in which for potential future conferences with mayors of sanctuary cities.
The incoming czar has been concerned in a nasty spat with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who lately pledged to defend migrants in his sanctuary metropolis from Trump’s mass deportation — and even stated he’s prepared to go to be arrested.
“He’s prepared to go to jail, I’m prepared to place him in jail,” Homan informed Fox Information’ Sean Hannity.
Behind-the-scenes, Homan informed Adams that he was prepared to make use of a federal statute that permits the feds prosecute any individual or municipality that protects undocumented folks towards defiant sanctuary metropolis mayors, sources informed The Publish.
After the Adams’ olive department, Homan stated related conferences with blue-city mayors may very well be within the offing.
“I’m not gonna give them credit score and name them out till I even have a sit-down,” he stated. “After we begin speaking and we really set a gathering up, then I’ll discuss it, however till then I’m not gonna give them credit score for speaking about one thing they haven’t carried out but.”
Homan’s revelation concerning the ICE workplace got here after Adams — in a combative information convention held after the highly-anticipated sit-down — declared he was eyeing an govt order to roll again some sanctuary metropolis insurance policies to maintain New York Metropolis from turning into a “protected haven” for violent felony migrants.
However the mayor largely saved silent on particulars other than saying he’d purpose to untangle legal guidelines and insurance policies that prohibit how the Large Apple can work with ICE.
“I believed him yesterday and we left with the settlement that my workers will work along with his workers on the small print to get some of these items carried out, particularly him writing the chief orders,” Homan informed The Publish.
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