ICE kept out of Rikers Island jail for now, judge rules

A judge ruled Friday that she will continue to block New York City Mayor Eric Adams' administration from giving office space on Rikers Island back to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a deal Adams made with President Donald Trump's border czar.

Speaking from the bench, state Supreme Court Justice Mary V. Rosado said she would maintain a temporary restraining order she issued soon after the filing of a lawsuit filed last week by the City Council asking the court to find that ICE's presence on the island, the city's jail complex, would be illegal and to block it permanently.

Rosado did not explain her reasoning. Her order could be revisited at the next hearing, which is scheduled for May 29 but could be held earlier. 

At issue is whether city sanctuary laws — along with an alleged "corrupt bargain" by the Trump administration to dismiss the criminal prosecution against Adams — prohibit Adams' administration from giving the office space to ICE.

Rosado's order temporarily blocks the city from furthering any agreement to let the agency back onto Rikers, from which it was exiled over a decade ago under sanctuary-city legislation enacted by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. Adams' first deputy, Randy Mastro, later told reporters that the city continues to develop a legal template to negotiate the specifics of ICE's return. He said the city is considering appealing Rosado's order. 

Daniel Kornstein, outside counsel for the council, told the judge that those detained by ICE would suffer irreparable harm if agents are permitted back onto the island, and that the agency can’t be trusted not to exceed its stated mandate to go after only violent gang members. ICE, he said, wants "to expand and drum up deportations."

Kornstein pointed to “current events” — the detention of immigrants who were sent to be jailed in far-off places, potentially out of the reach of the city or the courts to reverse the deportation if there is a mistake. He cited the words of Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, that he wants all immigrants in the nation illegally.

“Once people are … in immigration custody,” Kornstein said, “it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to get them out of immigration custody.” Kornstein said he wants to subpoena Homan, a possibility the judge did not rule out.

Jim Catterson, outside counsel for the Adams administration, said that the council’s fears are speculative, given that there’s no formal arrangement yet to return ICE to Rikers. Moreover, he said, an order to let ICE back parrots the language of the sanctuary-city law’s exemptions for investigations of criminal law. He criticized the council's lawsuit as meritless. 

"You have a political polemic masquerading as a petition," he said.

The judge must rule on whether the sanctuary city law prohibits what the administration says it wants to do: a collaborative mission to combat criminal gangs and do related investigations. The 2014 law bars nearly all city cooperation with civil immigration enforcement and led city-assisted deportations to drop from thousands a year down to dozens.

The council argues that letting ICE back would not only be an illegal circumvention of city law, but the result of a "corrupt bargain" reached between Adams and the Trump administration to trade the dismissal of the mayor's corruption prosecution for his cooperation with immigration enforcement.

A mayoral executive order, signed earlier this month by Mastro, said the focus would be on "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."

The particular rules governing the arrangement between ICE and the city — which would be contained in a memorandum that the city must sign with the federal government but is on hold after the judge temporarily blocked its creation — haven't been disclosed.

Adams, whose office announced earlier this month that he had recused himself on the Rikers-ICE matter, had agreed months ago to let ICE return to the island. Mastro signed the order hours after the recusal announcement.

Newsday reported last year that before ICE was booted from Rikers — and other immigration-enforcement cooperation, such as with the NYPD and other agencies, was all but prohibited — thousands were deported annually with city assistance. As of late last year, the number was 11.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

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