Over the course of nearly a year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly met with top federal immigration officials and teased changes to the city’s sanctuary policies, but he has yet to officially deliver on any major reforms.
Since an overwhelming illegal migration crisis began in New York City in the spring of 2022, the mayor has increasingly called for changes to the Big Apple’s sanctuary city laws restricting cooperation between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Adams’ office repeatedly held discussions with ICE leaders in 2024 and the mayor has personally sat down with border czar Tom Homan twice to discuss strategy, but formal changes have yet to be made.
Following a Thursday meeting with Homan, the Democrat mayor said he’s working on an executive order that would allow ICE agents back onto Rikers Island, the largest prison facility in New York City. Adams emphasized that ICE collaboration would be focused on dangerous criminal migrants.
“Today, I met with ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan and local federal law enforcement officials to discuss how we can work together to remove violent migrant gangs from our city,” Adams said in a public statement. “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.”
“We also discussed ways to embed more NYPD detectives into federal task forces, focusing on these violent gangs and criminal activity. Keeping the 8.3 million New Yorkers who call our city home safe is — and will always remain — our administration’s North Star,” the mayor continued.
However, this is not the first time Adams has promised changes to New York City’s sanctuary policies. His office has been meeting with ICE officials for at least nine months to discuss possible avenues of cooperation. An ICE regional field director confirmed in May 2024 that his team had been having “numerous dialogues” with Adams’ office about how to work around the city’s sanctuary laws.
Adams also personally met with Homan in December, where the pair discussed a range of immigration issues and the mayor publicly declared he was looking into an executive action to spark more collaboration with federal immigration authorities. Reportedly discussed during that meetings was the possibility of opening Rikers Island back up to deportation officers.
“Well, the City Council made it clear they don’t want to change that,” the mayor said in December, referring to the city’s sanctuary law protecting criminal migrants. “They stated they’re not willing to change the sanctuary city law. I think they’re wrong. I have my teams looking at my power as executive orders.”
ICE agents had long been able to access Rikers Island in order to apprehend criminal illegal migrants in a safe and controlled setting, but that privilege was taken away by former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
De Blasio in 2014 signed into law a bill that largely blocks the New York Police Department from working with federal immigration authorities, and he enacted legislation in 2018 that doubled down on the policy. ICE agents have since been prohibited from entering Rikers Island, preventing them from assuming custody of criminal illegal migrants.
New York City, the largest sanctuary city in the country, has since become a focal point for the nationwide immigration crisis that began under the Biden administration. Adams Thursday said more than 230,000 migrants have flocked to the Big Apple since the spring of 2022, costing the city around $7 billion in expenses.
Numerous crimes by illegal migrants living in the city have garnered national attention, such as when a group allegedly went on a shopping spree and beat down an New York Police Department (NYPD) officer, an illegal migrant allegedly fired at two NYPD cops during a foot pursuit, the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint by an illegal migrant and another alleged rape by an illegal migrant at knifepoint.
Amid the weight of the asylum crisis and accompanying crime in the Big Apple, Adams began to shift rightward on immigration — at least in rhetoric.
Adams has consistently pointed the finger at the liberal-dominated City Council for its unwillingness to wind back the sanctuary laws. However, moderate council members have accused the mayor of only talking tough on the issue with little to no follow through, and they’ve pointed out that Adams had the authority to include a referendum on the sanctuary law on the November ballot, putting the decision directly in voters’ hands, but he chose not to.
“Tough talk is good, but actions speak louder,” Democrat City Council member Robert Holden said in December. “The Mayor had the chance to amend or repeal sanctuary city laws through his Charter Revision Commission but chose not to.”
During a sit-down interview Friday alongside Homan, the mayor was questioned by Fox News on why he didn’t act sooner.
“Let’s be clear, I’m not standing in the way,” Adams said. “I’m collaborating against so many others that don’t want to collaborate.”
In response, “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy pointed out that the mayor was only trying to collaborate with ICE now, to which the mayor vehemently denied.
“Let’s go back to Spring 2022, I was saying we need to get dangerous people off our streets,” Adams said.
To that, Doocy said “but it wasn’t happening,” and asked Adams directly if he was helping ICE at that time.
“In the level of enforcement criminal actions — yes,” Adams claimed. “The law says ‘Eric, you cannot do it for civil enforcement, but for criminal actions, yes.’”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation on when exactly the executive order allowing ICE agents onto Rikers Island will be signed.
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