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NYC Council goes to court to block federal law enforcement from Rikers
By
Samantha Max
Published Jun 3, 2025
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Samantha Max / Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Jun 3, 2025
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The New York City Council urged a judge to block federal law enforcement officials — including the Department of Homeland Security — from working on Rikers Island at a hearing in a Lower Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday.
First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro issued an executive order in April that allows federal officers to open an office alongside the jail complex, after Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to help remove what he described as “violent migrant gangs” from the city. The Council sued Adams, Mastro and the city’s Department of Correction a week later.
The Council in court papers said it wants to “stop Eric Adams’s flagrant abuse of the power of the mayoralty.” Councilmembers have asked a judge to declare the executive order illegal and stop city officials from taking any further steps to let federal law enforcement on Rikers Island.
“The federal government, if allowed on Rikers, is going to pursue a relentless, lawless agenda of deportation and civil immigration law enforcement,” said Katherine Rosenfeld, an attorney representing the City Council.
A lawyer representing Adams said the case “is nothing more than a policy dispute between the city council and the mayor” and shouldn’t be decided by the courts.
“This is a political fight,” said the lawyer, James Catterson.
The Council’s lawsuit accuses Adams of flouting the city’s sanctuary laws, which are meant to encourage immigrants to call police, report unsafe work conditions and use other city services without fear of deportation.
In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation that expanded the city’s sanctuary policies and prohibited federal immigration officials from operating on Rikers Island. The new executive order cites a carveout in the city law, which permits federal law enforcement to have an office on Rikers Island as long as it’s used for criminal cases, not civil immigration enforcement.
Rosenfeld said the executive order is tainted by an alleged “quid pro quo” between Adams and President Donald Trump’s administration, which the mayor has denied. Adams first announced his plans to let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement work on Rikers Island just days after Department of Justice officials directed federal prosecutors in New York City to dismiss his criminal corruption case. Several prosecutors resigned in protest.
That same week, Adams appeared on "Fox & Friends" with Trump's “border czar” Tom Homan, who pressed the mayor to help with immigration enforcement.
“If he doesn't come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won't be sitting on the couch,” Homan said in the TV interview. “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
Adams has said he delegated the decision of whether to issue an executive order to Mastro to avoid any perceptions of impropriety. But councilmembers said in their lawsuit that Mastro didn’t conduct a thorough assessment on his own about whether it would be appropriate to allow federal officials on Rikers Island and instead issued the order because it “was the outcome demanded by the resolution of the mayor’s criminal case.”
Tagged
Politics
Rikers Island
eric adams
new york city
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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