ICE returning to Rikers Island, Mayor Eric Adams says after Trump czar meeting

Mayor Eric Adams is preparing to return the exiled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex, he said in a statement Thursday, hours after meeting with President Donald Trump’s border czar about helping accelerate deportations.

Inviting back ICE — whose presence at Rikers was terminated about a decade ago under Adams’ predecessor Bill de Blasio and sanctuary city laws he signed — reflects a rightward shift in city policy.

"We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island — as was the case for 20 years — but now, instead, ICE agents would specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs," Adams said in the statement.

ICE’s imminent return comes three days after Trump’s Department of Justice ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors to dismiss the corruption prosecution of Adams, in part so the mayor could focus on helping with Trump’s immigration crackdown. (On Thursday, the head of the Manhattan federal prosecutors office, Danielle Sassoon, resigned rather than execute the dismissal.)

ICE has offices at both the Nassau and Suffolk jails.

Details of Adams' forthcoming ICE order, including how it would comport with the sanctuary city laws, were not disclosed. Those laws prohibit nearly all cooperation except in limited circumstances, such as potential terrorists or those convicted of the most serious or violent crimes, and then only upon a valid judicial warrant.

Newsday reported in November that Adams’ administration had so far that year rejected 99% of federal immigration enforcers’ inquiries about immigrants who were jailed, arrested or otherwise under scrutiny by the city.

Adams, in a series of TV news interviews late Thursday afternoon, defended his announcement and disputed that those who aren't "the worst of the worst" would be caught in an immigration dragnet.

"Let's go where the dangerous people are and that is those who are arrested for a crime, those who are in our jail," he told WPIX/11 News.

The border czar, Tom Homan, told Newsmax that Adams in the meeting committed to ICE's return. Homan said that “naysayers” in the City Council who don’t want ICE on the island are imperiling other immigrants who aren’t wanted criminals but who are in the United States illegally. 

“If we arrest the bad guy at Rikers Island, then the alien’s safe, the officer’s safe, the community’s safe. But if you release that public safety threat back into the public, what do I have to do? We gotta send law enforcement officers in that community, and we will find him. But when we find him, he’s gonna be with others, others who aren’t a criminal priority, but they’re gonna be in the country illegally, so we’re gonna arrest them too,” he said.

In 2014, when the City Council was passing legislation to boot ICE, the council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, said the measure was particularly important for protecting low-level offenders from deportation and to keep families together.

"We're a city that respects the constitutional rights of all of our residents," she said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.