NYC Mayor Adams Allows Federal Agencies to Operate on Rikers Island

A new executive order from the mayor’s office allows federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE and the FBI, to set up shop at the jail complex.

A barbed wire fence outside inmate housing on New York's Rikers Island correctional facility in New York on March 16, 2011. Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo, File

NEW YORK CITY–Mayor Eric Adams’s administration issued an executive order on Tuesday allowing federal law enforcement agencies to set up office space in the city’s largest jail.

The order, issued by recently appointed Deputy Mayor and former Giuliani aide Randy Mastro on April 8, allows federal agencies to station personnel at the Rikers Island jail complex.

Those agencies include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Mastro said in a statement to CBS, “This directive is driven by one priority and one priority alone: to keep all New Yorkers safe.”

The decision follows an agreement made by Adams with border czar Tom Homan in early February, in which Adams stated that ICE agents would be allowed to operate on Rikers Island once again.

Federal immigration agents had an office on the East River island until New York passed sanctuary laws in 2014.

When it comes to apprehending illegal immigrants, New York’s sanctuary laws allow the New York Police Department (NYPD) and New York City Department of Correction (DOC) to cooperate with ICE and other immigration agencies only in specific cases, such as when the individual is a violent criminal or a suspected terrorist.

The April 8 order includes a clause that states that any federal law enforcement agency with an office on DOC property must enter a “Memorandum of Understanding.” The agreement limits the agencies from enforcing civil immigration law in New York City, thereby following the city’s sanctuary laws.

“City of New York has taken steps to ensure that all residents, regardless of immigration status, can access City services and be confident that the City will not transmit information obtained in relation to accessing these services to federal immigration authorities,” the order states.

In his statement, Mastro reiterated that the agencies would be limited in power.

“This executive order is expressly limited to establishing office space and coordinating with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations, not civil matters,” he said.

The deputy mayor said in the order that it is vital that agencies cooperate with the NYPD and DOC to share intelligence on criminal gang activities inside and outside New York City prisons.

Re-establishing office space on the island for federal agencies “will allow our correctional intelligence bureau to better coordinate on criminal investigations—in particular, those focused on violent transnational criminal gangs—and make our city safer,” he said.

Mastro said that he has visited the island prison multiple times and talked with officials from the DOC, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Homeland Security, all of whom indicated they would like to work directly with Correction investigators on criminal cases and combating transnational criminal gangs.

Homan wrote in a post on social media platform X on April 8, “Thank you Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Mastro! 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, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams criticized “Deputy President Eric Adams” and said that “this is a very scary moment to be in.”

In a video posted to Instagram, Williams said the move would result in New Yorkers being deported “regardless of legality, of immigration status, regardless of criminal status.”

Mayoral candidate and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also spoke out against the move.

The council speaker, a Democrat and no relation to the New York mayor, said in a statement: “It is 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. ... Local Law 58 of 2014 has clear guidelines that prohibit the use of office space on Rikers for the enforcement of civil immigration enforcement.”

On April 2, a federal judge dismissed a corruption case against Eric Adams. The Justice Department had argued that the case was hindering the mayor’s cooperation with the administration’s immigration crackdown.