NYC mayor preps executive order allowing ICE agents into Rikers Island after meeting border czar

Border czar Tom Homan met with New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday in a sign of how the Trump administration has its eyes on the country’s biggest city to carry out its immigration enforcement plans.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday he will use his executive powers to allow federal immigration authorities back into the city’s sprawling Rikers Island jail complex, marking a substantial shift in the city’s sanctuary policies that prevent it from enforcing immigration law. “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,” Adams said in a statement Thursday afternoon. The announcement, sure to ignite a political backlash among members of the City Council and political rivals, comes hours after Adams’ meeting with border czar Tom Homan. A 2014 sanctuary law removed ICE from the jail complex, and ICE’s office was officially closed in 2015. About a decade after the ban, Adams said the executive order will specify that federal officers on jail grounds limit their cooperation to investigations that focus on criminal and gang activity. The mayor also said he would direct the correctional intelligence bureau to cooperate with ICE. The mayor’s executive order could face a legal challenge from the City Council, which has been critical of the mayor’s stance. Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilmembers Alexa Avilés and Sandy Nurse said Thursday they will determine the council’s formal response based on the executive order. “The mayor’s announcement of the intention to issue an executive order that allows the Trump administration access to Rikers is concerning, but we must see language of any purported executive order to evaluate its legality,” they said in a joint statement.