In February 2025, seven masked and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pushed past homeless shelter staff to detain a resident. In another incident, ICE agents asked to use the bathroom then tried to look through the sign-in book at a Department of Probation. Last June, Homeland Security officers misrepresented themselves as fire department officers. And NYPD officers received an avalanche of requests to hold suspects in custody for immigration agents in 2025 — 3,600% more requests than in the previous year.
These are just some of the troubling findings from audits of six city agencies undertaken by the Mamdani administration to ensure compliance with the city’s sanctuary laws. The audits and recommendations were called for under Executive Order 13, Mayor Mamdani’s first step toward fulfilling his campaign promise to protect New York’s immigrants from federal immigration enforcement.
The 19-page executive summary of the audits illuminates the breadth of city agency interaction with immigration enforcement and outlines recommendations for how officials can plug loopholes and rectify weaknesses in the city’s immigrant protections.
“The findings and recommendations released today will strengthen City agencies’ protocols when interacting with federal authorities and ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, can safely access the City services they deserve,” said Faiza Ali, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs in a statement.
Example after example showed how President Trump’s immigration crackdown has been attempting to infiltrate city agencies and expose sensitive data. In 2025, for instance, the Department of Corrections (DOC) fielded 895 requests from ICE for release dates for inmates and to detain individuals after their release time — a 120% increase over 2024. (The audit found that DOC provided release time and facilitated transfer in 24 cases).
While the audit found few places where departments were proactively sharing information with federal immigration authorities, one exception was the DOC, which reported that staff had been sending daily reports to ICE of noncitizens who had “violent or serious convictions,” according to the report.
The DOC has long been the subject of advocate ire after the Department of Investigation found that a Rikers officer had shared information with ICE in violation of sanctuary protections in 2024. Lawyers for immigrant New Yorkers have testified in city meetings to DOC allegedly allowing ICE to take custody of clients directly inside the Rikers jail complex, and documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests have found that corrections staff frequently communicate with ICE by phone and email.
The practice of proactive information sharing, which began in 2015, is slated to end in the near-future, according to the Mayor’s Office.
The report also found where City staffers had held the line on sanctuary policies at the doors of shelters, a juvenile justice facility, and even at the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The audit’s review of technology agreements found, too, that city privacy laws were properly implemented on riders attached to the contracts, according to city officials.
The report laid out dozens of recommendations, including ensuring the NYPD establishes a specific protocol around 911 calls related to immigration matters, requiring officers to notify department leadership and send a high-ranking officer to the scene. The Administration for Children’s Services will also more carefully consider negative immigration consequences of barring parent access to children . The Department of Social Services will revise their protocols and training guidelines to safeguard against federal immigration enforcement agents’ access to city property, and Health and Hospital Corp. will create new materials and guidance around how medical staff must act when ICE brings an individual for care.
In addition, the city has expanded the required documentation of interactions with federal immigration authorities across multiple agencies, according to the report.
All of the recommendations have already been officially adopted by Mayor Mamdani, and will be implemented by agencies, according to the Mayor’s Office.
The audits were proposed in February, shortly after Mamdani’s inauguration, as follow-through on his promise to Trump-proof New York City. In the executive order, he created an Interagency Response Committee — led by the first deputy mayor and Ali — which was tasked with leading the audits of city agencies’ work with the feds.
The announcement came in the wake of multiple high-profile incidents of collaboration and, in some cases, illegal info-sharing by city agencies such as the DOC and the NYPD under mayor Eric Adams.
At the time, experts interviewed by Documented expressed concern about the impact of such incidents on the likelihood for immigrant New Yorkers to access essential city services, and made multiple recommendations of ways to make the city’s sanctuary laws more water-tight.
They pointed to closing law enforcement loopholes outlined in previous city reports, limiting data gathering and holding city workers accountable for their individual actions.
Of concern was the close relationship between federal immigration agents and the NYPD on task forces — a place where at least one officer was found to be wrongfully sharing immigration information.
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In Friday’s report, auditors noted that the NYPD had not yet concluded a full audit of their task force operations, which they’ve pledged to finish by the end of June this year — leaving some questions unanswered about the police force’s operations.
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The executive summary was provided to reporters by the Mamdani administration. Documented’s requested the full audits under the Freedom of Information Act.
Public outcry over the NYPD’s involvement with immigration enforcement hit a fever pitch earlier this month as both politicians, advocates and community members decried what they saw as police officers helping ICE agents detain a man in Bushwick. The incident happened in front of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center as protesters faced off with ICE agents attempting to take Nigerian Brooklynite Chidozie Okeke into custody after treating him for injuries.
“New York City is home to immigrants from every corner of the world, and no one should live here in fear because of their status,” said Mayor Mamdani in a written statement to reporters. “The audit was a critical step towards strengthening compliance with our local laws and reinforcing New York City’s protections for immigrant communities.”
