After the Adams administration signed an executive order rolling back a decade-old legislation that kept ICE out of Rikers Island, around 75 advocates, elected officials, and impacted communities rallied Thursday outside City Hall, saying it “completes Eric Adams’ quid pro quo with Donald Trump.”
“Let’s be clear, Mayor Eric Adams indicated his intentions for this executive order when the Trump administration attempted to dismiss the corruption case. Several DOJ prosecutors resigned because they saw it as a quid pro quo,” NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said at the rally.
The order, issued on Tuesday night, re-establishes ICE’s ability to operate on Rikers Island for criminal enforcement — a practice that the Bill de Blasio administration previously halted. It also authorizes ICE and at least six other federal agencies, including the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, to establish offices within city jails. Adams delegated the task of signing the executive order to First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro.
“I did not recuse myself. People play around with terminology. I delegated. I’m the mayor,” Adams said in an interview with 1010 WINS on 92.3 FM. “I have a first deputy mayor on board, Randy Mastro, an excellent attorney, excellent first deputy mayor. When he came on board, I delegated to him. I said, ‘I need for you to look at this with unbiased eyes so no one can say that there’s some bias.’”
In a letter sent to Adams on Wednesday, New York City officials wrote that “prior to sanctuary protections, ICE’s offices on Rikers Island funneled 3,000 to 4,000 New Yorkers a year from city jails into immigration detention,” and noted that the order undermined fundamental constitutional rights. The thirty City Council members, along with the Public Advocate, Comptroller, and the borough presidents of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, urged Adams to reverse the executive order.
“Mayor Adams should be working to close Rikers Island,” said Councilmember Sandy Nurse at Thursday’s rally. “The council worked very hard to get [ICE] off of Rikers. And the reason they did that was because ICE had the freedom to roam through the facilities to track down people, to talk to them without a lawyer, without an interpreter. That’s not due process.”
Other officials at the rally said Adams’ move now endangers vulnerable communities and fuels fear. “Breaking of precedent of over a decade of laws, is quite frankly disgusting,” said Councilmember Alexa Avilés.
The order Mastro signed states that the jail complex on Rikers currently incarcerates members and associates of transnational gangs like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has labeled as foreign terrorist organizations. “Rikers Island is the site of correctional facilities under the jurisdiction of the DOC and currently houses members and associates of designated terrorist organizations among other individuals incarcerated there,” the executive order states.
Data from the Vera Institute of Justice shows that more than 80% of the people confined to Rikers have not been convicted of a crime and endure horrific conditions as they wait for trial. The number of people detained in facilities on Rikers Island grew steadily from 5,708 on August 1, 2022 to 6,182 people on August 1, 2023. Conditions at Rikers have continued to deteriorate, with five inmates dying there in the first three months of this year.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said that Adams was “rolling out the welcome mat for violating New Yorkers’ civil rights with impunity.”
“Adams is making a runaround on the city’s longstanding sanctuary laws,” he said in a statement shared with Documented. “Now is the time for New York’s elected officials to stand firm in protecting our immigrant families, as our mayor has once again proved he is unwilling to.”
In signing the order, Mastro argued that the decision was still in alignment with New York’s sanctuary city laws, which prevent the city from assisting in deporting migrants, according to ABC 7 New York.
“This is only about advancing criminal investigations and bringing criminal charges against these heinous, violent, transnational criminal gang members and associates,” Mastro said, highlighting that the city will cooperate only with federal detentions related to criminal investigations, not with civil immigration enforcement.
