FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Contact:
Yatziri Tovar, yatziri.tovar@maketheroadny.org (917) 771-2818
Yonah Zeitz, yonah@katalcenter.org | (347) 201-2769
Follow on socials @KatalCenter @MakeTheRoadNY | #ShutRikers
Groups Working to Shut Rikers Join with ICE Out of NYC Coalition to Reject Plans to Bring ICE Officers Back to Rikers Island Jail Complex
New York, NY: Today, news broke that Mayor Adams is attempting to use executive power to put ICE officers back on Rikers. This morning, Mayor Adams met with Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, to discuss immigrant enforcement.
As a result of the ICE Out of Rikers Campaign, the federal agency has been off Rikers for a decade. Under current city law, ICE is prohibited from operating at Rikers, but this mayor has a long and well-documented history of obfuscating the law.
In recent months, Adams has worked to curry favor with President Donald Trump, in what many speculated as an attempt to seek a pardon. On Monday morning this week, Adams convened his top commissioners and gave the order: “Don’t criticize President Trump, don’t interfere with immigration enforcement.” Hours later, news broke that Trump’s Justice Department was ordering U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York to drop the case against Adams, an explicitly political move so that Adams could prosecute Trump’s attacks on immigrants.
ICE out NYC and the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice issued the following statement:
“We reject Mayor Adams’s plan to once again flout the law and reopen the ICE office at Rikers. The shameless move by Mayor Adams, targeting immigrants in a quid pro quo with President Trump to get his corruption charges dropped, is callous and dangerous. Throwing immigrants under the bus to benefit himself goes against the values and morals we hold as New Yorkers. Rikers Island has a long and documented history of violence, abuse, and mismanagement. Since Mayor Adams took office, the crisis at Rikers has worsened and at least 33 people have died behind bars.
We cannot go backward and let ICE operate in the city’s local jails to target and further criminalize immigrants. We vehemently oppose any effort to allow ICE to operate on Rikers and we will continue to reject any proposals that come forward that criminalize immigrant, Black, Brown, and low-income New Yorkers. As Trump pushes for immigrants to be placed in dangerous and deadly jails and prisons from El Salvador to Guantanamo Bay, we will fight to prevent this from happening in New York.
The law that bars ICE from operating at Rikers was passed by the City Council; any attempt to undermine the law is an end-run around the people of New York City by a mayor who has already shown himself to be out of touch with the will of New Yorkers. Instead of cozying up to Trump and attacking immigrants, the Mayor of the City of New York should be working to defend New Yorkers, protect immigrants, and shut down Rikers once and for all.”
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