Mayor Eric Adams belatedly offered support Monday for a Big Apple high schooler rounded up in President Trump’s deportation blitz — reversing his original assertion that the Venezuelan migrant’’s arrest by ICE won’t discourage other migrants from seeking city services.
The city’s top lawyer filed a legal brief backing Dylan Lopez Contreras, a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker who was detained in a Manhattan courthouse May 21 after attending a mandatory immigration hearing.
Contreras’ arrest drew protests from hundreds of his fellow high school students last week, as well as a wave of criticism for Adams after he conspicuously declined to question the migrant’s detention.
The legal brief sounded the alarm that ICE’s tactics threaten to deter people from participating in the court system — a key promise of New York City’s sanctuary policies.
“The implications threaten to reach well beyond the immigration arena and reach the countless other matters affecting public welfare that require our residents to appear in court every day,” the brief states.
Mayor Eric Adams, in a statement echoing the brief’s arguments, said Contreras was punished for following the law.
“Dylan Lopez Contreras was going through the exact legal proceeding that we encourage new arrivals to go through in order to be able to work and provide for their families — and even accessed the center that we created for migrants to be able to avoid city shelters and become independent,” Adams said.
But Adams sang a different tune last week when asked by The Post whether Contreras’ arrest would discourage other migrants from going through the court system.
“No, I don’t,” Adams said.
A City Hall spokesperson tried to walk back Adams’ initial comments, asserting the mayor was speaking with limited information.
Adams has consistently voiced support for most sanctuary city policies that he maintains will ensure anyone, regardless of immigration status, will continue to call police and respond to court, if ordered.
The mayor has also pushed to roll back certain sanctuary city policies to increase cooperation with ICE.
Hizzoner’s openness to reopening a long-shuttered ICE office on Rikers Island and allowing city officials to collaborate with the feds on civil immigration enforcement coincided with his cozying up to Trump and other MAGA-aligned leaders.
Contreras’ immigration case — which is unfolding in Pennsylvania federal court — potentially puts Adams in the tough spot of appeasing his Trump-friendly allies and assuaging fears of immigrant New Yorkers worried about being unfairly caught in deportation dragnets.
“Dylan has done everything legally necessary to satisfy his immigration process, yet was kidnapped by ICE right in front of his mother after attending his scheduled immigration court hearing,” said Power Malu, president of compassion and Candice Braun, chief empathy officer of Artists Athletes Activists/ROCC NYC, in a statement.
“On the one hand, the mayor of our sanctuary city is encouraging people to continue using public services and on the other hand he is not willing to stand up and protect our residents from wrongful ICE apprehensions.”
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