Mayor Eric Adams vowed to reopen the shuttered ICE office at Rikers Island following a closed-door meeting with President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan Thursday.
Adams, in a statement, said he was eyeing an executive order to reestablish a federal immigration presence at the troubled jail complex – with a new mandate to work with the feds on investigations targeting migrant criminals and gangbangers.
“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,” he said. “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.”
The hour-and-a-half meeting at Manhattan ICE offices was Adams’ second with Homan, and came after city council leaders met separately with the federal immigration czar.
The mayor floated the idea of reopening the Rikers facility during a meeting with Homan in December before Trump took office — a move that signaled an about-face from Adams’ prior immigration stance.
Unlike their previous sit-down at Gracie Mansion, Adams on Thursday was summoned to 26 Federal Plaza to meet with Homan on his turf.
Adams has faced criticism of being beholden to the Trump White House after the Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors to toss their damning and far-reaching corruption case against the mayor earlier this month.
Hizzoner had already begun to soften his long-running support of the Big Apple’s “sanctuary city” status before Trump took office.
The administration has taken a hard line against immigration-friendly cities like New York and Chicago — with US Attorney General Pam Bondi bashing the sanctuary cities this week.
“This is a new DOJ,” Bondi told reporters. “New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops. It stops today.”
Sources said Wednesday that Homan was “not happy” about the Big Apple not doing more to fall in line with Trump’s promised crackdown on immigration.
The feds this week clawed back from New York City $80 million in government funds the White House said was used to house and coddle migrants.
In his statement Thursday, Adams seemed to be falling in line.
“As I have always said, immigrants have been crucial in building our city and will continue to be key to our future success,” the mayor said. “But we must fix our long-broken immigration system.
“Since the spring of 2022, New York City has been forced to shoulder the burden of a national humanitarian crisis where more than 230,000 migrants have come to our city seeking support at a cost of approximately $7 billion, with little help from the previous administration,” Adams said.
“That is why I have been clear that i want to work with the new federal administration, not war with them, to find common ground.”
Meanwhile, the city council’s conservative “Common Sense Caucus” has been pushing Adams to get tougher on migrants.
Caucus leaders met with Homan on Thursday before he sat down with Adams, and said the border czar “is not messing around.”
“He wants absolute cooperation,” Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) told The Post as she left the meeting.
“The border czar wants to know where these gang members and criminal migrants are,” Paladino said. “They go from shelter to shelter to shelter. ICE wants to grab them as soon as they come out of that turnstile system we’ve got.”
Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) said the caucus is behind Homan’s efforts to clean up the Big Apple.
“We told the border czar there are situations the mayor would do certain things and he hasn’t done them,” Holden said.
“The mayor has to make good on some of his promises,” he added. “We want criminals out. It’s not happening. It’s not happening at a pace the president would like to see, and certainly Tom Homan would like to see.”
https://nypost.com/2025/02/13/us-news/eric-adams-vows-to-reopen-ice-office-at-rikers-island/
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