A New York state judge struck down an executive order issued by the administration of Mayor Eric Adams that sought to allow federal immigration authorities into the Rikers Island jail complex, calling it “illegal.”
The judge ruled that the order permitting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to open offices at the jail was barred by an “impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest” between Mr. Adams and President Trump.
The judge said that the apparent conflict had become clear because of discussions between the mayor’s lawyers and federal prosecutors this year as the Department of Justice moved to drop corruption charges against the mayor in exchange for cooperation with Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. Mr. Adams, the judge noted, announced he would allow federal agents into Rikers three days after the deputy attorney general at the time, Emil Bove III, directed prosecutors to dismiss the charges against Mr. Adams.
The ruling on Monday was a victory for the City Council, which had sued the mayor after his administration issued the executive order in April. The Trump administration had hoped to get access to Rikers Island to accelerate immigration enforcement in New York City, which has so-called sanctuary provisions that limit cooperation between the city and federal immigration authorities.
The judge, Justice Mary V. Rosado of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, had consistently handed setbacks to Mr. Adams this year by issuing short-term rulings that indefinitely blocked ICE from entering Rikers.
Her ruling on Monday was the final decision in the lawsuit brought by the City Council.
“The court need not reach whether there actually was a conflict of interest because the timeline of public statements and the ongoing criminal prosecution so clearly demonstrate an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest,” she wrote in a seven-page decision.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Adams did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Mr. Adams met with Mr. Trump’s top border adviser, Thomas Homan, in February. Shortly after the meeting, Mr. Adams, a Democrat who is now running for re-election as an independent, announced that he intended to let ICE into Rikers.
The order was issued in April not by Mr. Adams, but by Randy Mastro, the first deputy mayor, in an attempt to distance the mayor from the decision.
But the judge wrote that the move to delegate the power to Mr. Mastro as a way to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest was “farcical.” Mr. Mastro reports to the mayor, she wrote, and is not independent. The judge added that the mayor could have appointed an “independent, impartial and insulated official” to handle the decision but had instead “fully tainted the entire process.”
The executive order was narrowly crafted to allow federal agents into Rikers only to conduct federal criminal investigations, particularly into transnational gangs, and not to undertake routine enforcement of federal immigration laws, which are primarily civil matters.
City Hall had defended the order, saying it was necessary to fight gang activity and to preserve public safety. Mr. Mastro said in interviews that he had issued it after conducting his own independent assessment.
But the City Council and immigration activists argued that giving ICE access to Rikers could pave the way for the agency to operate inside the jail with little oversight or transparency, and could potentially lead to more deportations.
“We’re pleased that the court recognized Mayor Adams and Randy Mastro’s attempt to do Trump’s bidding and betray their obligation to New Yorkers as unlawful,” Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker, said in a statement with three other Democratic Council members. “This decision protects the civil rights of all New Yorkers from being violated and makes our city safer.”
ICE had previously operated at Rikers for years, leading to the deportation of thousands of immigrants jailed there, before the agency was barred from the jail complex because of sanctuary laws passed in 2014 under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Those laws sharply curtailed the number of people who were deported by ICE after being detained in city jails for criminal offenses. Across the country, ICE has sought to work with localities to deport undocumented immigrants who are in custody, arguing that it is an easy way to target individuals who endanger public safety.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration in the New York region.
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