Mayor's office executive order will allow federal agents to return to Rikers Island jail

Federal immigration enforcers are welcome back to the New York City jail complex on Rikers Island — after a decade in exile under the city’s sanctuary-city laws — according to a mayoral executive order signed Tuesday.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations and others, are again allowed to be granted office space on Rikers, which currently locks up nearly 7,000 inmates, mostly pre-trial detainees.

The mayoral order says that the federal personnel on the island will coordinate "criminal investigations and related intelligence sharing focused on violent criminals and gangs, crimes committed at or facilitated by persons in DOC custody, and drug trafficking."

In February, Mayor Eric Adams promised President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, that federal immigration enforcers would be returning to Rikers. Adams recused himself from that decision earlier Tuesday. Within hours came the order, issued by his new first deputy, Randy Mastro, a Giuliani-era aide who started with Adams at the beginning of the month.

Immigration enforcers had been banned from the city's jails under a decade-old law signed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Newsday reported last year that the city once helped deport thousands annually, but that number had plummeted to 11.

In February, soon after Adams announced an agreement to return ICE to Rikers, Homan told Adams during an appearance on Fox News that he would be "up his butt" if Adams "doesn’t come through" on his promises on immigration enforcement.

Tuesday's executive order comes less than a week after a judge granted a request by the Trump Justice Department to drop the federal corruption case against Adams, in part, so that Adams could help with Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In a statement issued by Adams’ press office, Mastro said: "This executive order is expressly limited to establishing office space and coordinating with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations, not civil matters. "

But the head of the City Council, Speaker Adrienne Adams, wasn’t convinced.

Her press office issued a statement late Tuesday calling the order "deeply concerning, particularly given Judge Ho’s recent ruling on Mayor Adams’ corruption case, the attempted quid pro quo, and the series of highly troubling recent events between the Trump administration and our city’s mayor."

"It is hard not to see this action as connected to the dismissal of the mayor’s case and his willingness to cooperate with Trump’s extreme deportation agenda that is removing residents without justification or due process," according to the statement, issued by her press office.

In a news release, the New York Civil Liberties Union expressed alarm.

"By giving ICE the keys to Rikers Island, the Adams administration is once again selling out New Yorkers for Trump’s dangerous deportation regime."

Homan said in the Fox News appearance that more cooperation by the city was to come, but he didn’t want to reveal it so as to tip off critics in the City Council.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

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