New York City Mayor’s Order Opening Rikers Island to ICE Declared Illegal
by Chuck Sharman
An executive order (EO) issued by then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), allowing agents of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into the city’s Rikers Island jail complex, was declared illegal by a state judge on September 8, 2025. The ruling by the state Supreme Court for New York County concluded a suit filed by the City Council earlier in the year, challenging EO No. 50. The decision was appealed, but with new Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) sworn in on January 1, 2026, it is apparently final.
It was a victory for the Council, which cried foul when Adams announced the cooperation agreement with ICE in February 2025, just days after then-Assistant U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove III instructed prosecutors with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to drop their corruption case against the mayor. The Council had adopted a “sanctuary” law in 2014 that booted ICE from Rikers Island. Going around that to issue EO No. 50, Adams also waited two months and had a subordinate do it for him, attempting to distance himself from the decision. But Judge Mary V. Rosado called that attempt “farcical.”
The judge had issued an injunction in the case in June 2025, barring Adams from using EO No.50 to enter into any agreement with ICE allowing its agents access to property owned by the City’s Department of Correction (DOC)—including the main jail complex on Rikers Island, where they could then apprehend migrants suspected of federal criminal immigration violations as they were released from custody of the DOC. See: Council of the City of N.Y. v. Adams, 238 N.Y.S.3d 393 (Sup. Ct.).
The final ruling said that the case turned on whether the order violated New York City Charter § 2604 (b)(3), which bars any “public servant” from using or attempting to use his position “to obtain any…privilege or other private or personal advantage.” Whether Adams actually engaged in a conflict of interest was not the issue, since the law mandates that he “must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.” In this case, “the timeline of public statements and [Adams’] ongoing criminal prosecution … clearly demonstrate an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest,” the court declared.
Adams argued that the order was issued by Deputy First Mayor Randy Maestro, whom Adams appointed in March 2025, just weeks before EO No.50 went out. But Maestro “is not independent and serves at the Mayor’s pleasure,” the court noted. While Adams could appoint an “independent, impartial and insulated official” to make a determination on the executive order, he instead “imputed” the “appearance of his own conflict” of interest to Maestro.
That appearance of conflict was brazenly on display when Adams met with Bove at the end of January 2025, days after Bove was appointed by newly inaugurated Pres. Donald J. Trump (R). Bove and Adams discussed how the prosecution of the Mayor might impact his ability to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Adams’ attorneys followed up with a letter warning Bove that the Mayor couldn’t be “a fully effective partner” with the feds “while he is under federal indictment.”
Meeting 10 days later with Tom Homan, Trump’s “Border Czar,” Adams announced that he would issue the executive order. In a TV appearance the next day, Homan made their arrangement even more clear, declaring that should Adams not come through, Homan would be “up his butt, saying ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York reluctantly granted the request to dismiss the charges against Adams, though Judge Dale E. Ho declared that “[e]verything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the [i]ndictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.”
Given that history, and Adams’ failure to distance himself from the order, EO No.50. was declared “null and void.” See: Council of the City of N.Y. v. Adams, N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of N.Y.), Case No. 154909/2025.
Additional source: New York Times
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Related legal case
Council of the City of N.Y. v. Adams, N.Y. Supr. (Cty. of N.Y.)
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Case No. 154909/2025 |
| Level | Supreme Court |