NYC Allows Immigration Office to Open at Rikers Jail

New York City Mayor Eric Adams ' administration is allowing federal immigration officials to operate at Rikers Island to work on gang and drug-related criminal investigations in the city’s largest lockup. But immigrant rights groups and Adams’ critics cast the Tuesday executive order as a concerning quid pro quo after federal prosecutors dropped corruption charges against the Democrat so he could help support the Republican President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Adams announced plans to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resume operations at the jail in February after meeting with Trump border czar Tom Homan, though details of the arrangement weren’t released until Tuesday’s order, the Associated Press reports.

The city order authorizes ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, which focuses on transnational crime, to have an office at the jail to work with city corrections officials on criminal investigations and “related intelligence sharing” efforts focused on violent criminals and gangs, crimes committed in jails and drug trafficking. The order from the mayor’s office also allows other federal agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, to have office space at the jail to assist with gang and drug-related investigations.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the Rikers decision is among a series of “highly troubling recent events” since Adams’ criminal charges were dropped. ICE used to have a presence on Rikers to facilitate the transfer of immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally into federal custody for deportation. But the city’s 2014 sanctuary law effectively banned ICE operations in its jails.