It’s a meltdown over ICE.
Eric Adams’ prime deputy mayor insisted Thursday that ICE received’t begin deporting inmates en masse from a resurrected outpost on Rikers Island — as progressive Metropolis Council members threatened to sue Hizzoner for allegedly betraying sanctuary metropolis insurance policies.
Town government order clears the way in which to reopen the Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace on the troubled lockup — however solely permits the feds to take care of legal probes, akin to these concentrating on transnational gangs, mentioned First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, who signed the directive issued late Tuesday after Adams recused himself.
“Civil issues are excluded. It received’t occur, it may well’t occur,” he instructed reporters throughout a defensive Metropolis Corridor information convention.
However when precisely ICE would transfer again to Rikers remained unclear, as Mastro additionally revealed that an settlement, or “memorandum of understanding,” between the town and the feds over the workplace has but to be finalized.
The warmth over ICE solely grew Thursday, as Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, no relation to the mayor, mentioned the legislative physique is on the lookout for methods to sue over the dead-of-night government order.
Metropolis Council members later took up a decision giving the speaker authority to “defend in opposition to the Adams Administration’s violation of Sanctuary Metropolis Legal guidelines and the Trump Administration’s assaults on the Metropolis of New York.”
The lawsuit risk got here on the heels of 30 elected officers firing off a letter accusing the mayor of fulfilling a corrupt “quid professional quo” with President Trump’s administration — and opening the gates for mass deportations from the Massive Apple.
The blistering letter demanding that the mayor rescind the order was accompanied by a raucous rally in Metropolis Corridor Park attended by the council’s speaker and metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander — who’re each operating within the June Democratic mayoral main.
Lander, a former Brooklyn councilman, famous he co-sponsored the 2014 sanctuary metropolis regulation that in the end booted ICE from Rikers.
He mentioned the regulation was handed amid considerations that ICE would run roughshod over folks’s due course of rights.
“You understand who we can’t belief with due course of? Donald Trump’s ICE,” Lander mentioned.
“I’ll be damned if we’re going to let Eric Adams undermine these legal guidelines and put ICE on Rikers. We won’t let Eric Adams betray this metropolis sooner or later extra.”
ICE had beforehand funneled between 3,000 and 4,000 New Yorkers yearly from native jails to immigration detention earlier than the town adopted sanctuary protections, the letter contends.
Adams, the mayor, has argued that migrants charged with violent crimes ought to be deported from New York Metropolis earlier than they’re convicted — a place he staked out as he moved politically nearer to Trump amid his now-dismissed corruption case.
The mayor’s flirtation with the MAGA world noticed him promise to concern an government order reopening the ICE workplace after assembly with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, who colorfully threatened to be “up his butt” if Adams didn’t assist with immigration.
When Trump’s Division of Justice stepped in to get Adams’ legal fees dropped, many progressives and council members claimed it was proof the mayor had reduce a deal promoting out the town’s immigrant neighborhood to keep away from prosecution.
“Your intentions to work with the Trump administration on reckless immigration enforcement are crystal clear, and denials that this can be a quid professional quo to launch from federal legal fees are meaningless – even the federal decide overseeing the case acknowledged that ‘all the things right here smacks of a discount,’” the lawmakers’ letter states. “New Yorkers see a Mayor that doesn’t care to serve New Yorkers, solely to guard himself.”
Mastro claimed that no council members needed to fulfill with the Adams administration on the chief order when it was completed after a months-long wait.
A Metropolis Council spokesperson denied Mastro’s account.
— Extra reporting by Craig McCarthy
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