(NewsNation) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies will now be allowed to use New York City’s Rikers Island jail facility to assist in criminal investigations despite arguments that the move violates existing sanctuary city laws.
New York First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro issued an executive order on Tuesday to give ICE office space at the facility after being authorized by Mayor Eric Adams to determine “whether and under what circumstances to permit federal law enforcement authorities to have a presence at Rikers Island.”
The jail facility, the largest in New York City, previously included ICE office space in 2014 before city officials passed sanctuary city laws that banned the federal immigration agency from the facility.
The executive order also allows other federal agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Postal Inspections Service to maintain office space at Rikers.
Federal officials will coordinate efforts with the city’s Corrections Department’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau on intelligence sharing focused on violent criminals and gangs, crimes committed at or facilities by persons in Department of Corrections custody and drug trafficking, the order states.
“This directive is driven by one priority and one priority alone: to keep all New Yorkers safe,” Mastro said in a statement issued by the city. “I came to this decision after making an independent assessment of the facts and law.”
The order stated that New York City has been jeopardized by violent transnational gangs, including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, both of which have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration.
The Department of Correction’s Intelligence Bureau is responsible for fighting gang activity in New York City’s jails. The executive order states it is critical that federal law enforcement agencies be able to share intelligence information with the DOC and New York City Police Department in real time regarding gang activity happening both inside and outside of jail facilities.
Tuesday’s announcement came after Adams signaled that he would cooperate with President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who has criticized sanctuary city leaders for not allowing local law enforcement to work with federal immigration agents.
The mayor said in an interview with Fox News that he would work to see if there was a way around the city’s existing sanctuary laws that would allow ICE officials to get into Riker’s Island. In the joint interview with Homan, the two officials vowed to work together to solve New York City’s migrant problem.
In a post on X, Homan thanked Adams and Mastro for their actions.
“This is a great first step in our continuing collaboration to make NYC even safer as President Trump has committed to. Promises Made. Promises Kept.”
However, Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the New York City Council, called the opening of Rikers Island to ICE “deeply concerning.” She became the latest official to suggest that the city’s mayor had struck a deal to have federal bribery charges dropped in exchange for cooperating with the Trump administration.
Mayor Adams has denied that is the case.
“It’s hard not to see this action as connected to the dismissal of the Mayor’s case and his willingness to cooperate with Trump’s extreme deportation agenda that is removing residents without justification or due process,” Adrienne Adams said in a statement.
The council speaker said the city’s sanctuary laws prohibit the use of office space at Riker’s Island for civil immigration enforcement. But the mayor told CBS News earlier this year that opening up the jail facility to ICE is about keeping New Yorkers safe.
“They’re going to be part of our intelligence, criminal aspects of it, and we’re going to be coordinating with them on other public safety aspects of it so that we can prevent what many people are afraid of, just a wide scale of wide net. We should focus on the individuals that they’re looking for,” Adams told the network.