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Mayor Eric Adams calls for expanded

cooperation between police and
immigration authorities
Feb 28, 2024, 7:16am Updated 7h ago

By: Associated Press

0:00 / 0:35

New York City Mayor Eric Adams called Tuesday for expanded cooperation
between local police and federal immigration authorities, attacking the current
city policies limiting such communication as detrimental to public safety.

The comments marked the mayor’s sharpest rebuke to date of so-called

sanctuary laws adopted by New York over the last decade, which were meant
to protect the city’s immigrant population by limiting how local agencies can
assist in federal detention and deportation efforts.

Citing his “fundamental disagreement” with those laws, Adams, a Democrat,

said the city's police department should be free to cooperate with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when a person is suspected of
a serious crime, such as robbery or gang activity.

“We should be communicating with ICE, and if ICE makes the determination of
deporting, then they should,” Adams said.

“The mere fact that we cannot share with ICE that this person has committed
three robberies, that this person is part of an organized gang crew, the mere
fact that we can’t say that or communicate that, that’s problematic for me," he
continued.

New York’s sanctuary policies have drawn intense backlash from conservatives
in recent weeks following some high-profile incidents involving migrants,
including a brawl with police and a shooting in Times Square.

The city first began limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement
agents in the 1980s as a public safety measure to assure the city’s large
foreign-born population that they didn't have to be afraid to interact with local
police.

Backers of those policies at the time included Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
who argued that from a crimefighting perspective, it was important to make
immigrants less fearful of police.

Those limits on cooperation have since been expanded under subsequent

administrations.

While Adams lamented the “drastic shifts” in the policy, he did not explicitly say
which aspects of the law he would seek to rescind. But his spokesperson,
Charles Lutvak, said the mayor was specifically opposed to a pair of laws
implemented in 2014 and 2017 under his predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The first prevents the city from honoring requests by immigration authorities to
hold crime suspects in custody unless they have been convicted of certain
violent offenses and a judge has issued a warrant for their removal. The second
law prohibits the use of city resources to assist in immigration enforcement
efforts.

Proponents of those laws said they ensure due process is afforded to

immigrants, who could otherwise face detention and deportation for the mere
suspicion of criminal conduct.

Adams cannot adjust the laws without the approval of the City Council, whose
progressive leaders have said they have no plans to revisit the protections.

But by embracing calls to roll back the laws, Adams had leant credence to the
dubious idea that migrants were fueling a rise in crime, according to Zachary
Ahmad, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“Mayor Adams’ shameful threats to end New York’s years-long status as a

sanctuary city will only result in the cruel targeting, demonization, and
demoralization of our immigrant neighbors,” he said. “Immigrants are not props
for theatrics that put their lives at risk.”

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