Mayor Eric Adams gestures whereas talking about President Donald Trump, ICE and immigration on Jan. 22, 2025.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
On the heels of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday remained mum on his administration’s plans to guard the Massive Apple’s undocumented immigrant inhabitants from the brand new commander-in-chief’s threats of mass deportations.
Throughout his weekly “off-topic” press convention on Jan. 21, the mayor mentioned he has been “very clear” that he would uphold town’s sanctuary legal guidelines, which bar native regulation enforcement entities from working with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in lots of instances. Nevertheless, he refused to enter specifics on how he plans to take action.
As a substitute, on Tuesday, he sought to calm frayed nerves amongst immigrant communities across the 5 boroughs.
“I’ve been very clear on this, and it’s not going to change,” Adams mentioned. “We want to bring down the anxiety. We want our immigrants to know that this is the city of immigrants; this is the country of immigrants. It’s imperative that you go to school, use the hospital service, use the police services.”
New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams met with Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s border czar, and then-President Joe Biden’s Division of Homeland Safety Official Kenneth Genalo at Gracie Mansion in New York on Dec. 12, 2024. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Images Workplace.
On the identical time, the mayor additionally repeated Tuesday that migrants who “commit violent crimes in our city have violated their right to be in our city and in our country.” He has by no means made clear whether or not he’s talking about migrants who’ve been convicted of an inventory of almost 200 crimes, for which town can cooperate with ICE; or those that have been merely accused of a criminal offense, who’re protected by sanctuary legal guidelines.
Town nonetheless has almost 50,000 undocumented migrants in its care, following a wave of over 230,000 newcomers who’ve arrived within the 5 boroughs since spring 2022.
On Monday night time, Trump signed a sequence of govt orders aimed toward closing the southern U.S. border with Mexico to immigration; ending citizenship granted to youngsters of noncitizens born within the US — generally known as birthright citizenship; and blocking migrants from searching for asylum. The president additionally pledged to deport “millions of criminal aliens” in his inauguration speech within the US Capitol Rotunda.
But when requested by a reporter Tuesday, Mayor Adams, who attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday, didn’t provide any particular plans he says town has developed to guard immigrants who haven’t been convicted of a criminal offense from deportation by the Trump administration. As a substitute, he mentioned immigration coverage is decided by the federal authorities and all town can do is be certain its companies are conscious of federal guidelines.
“It comes to one thing: the federal government is responsible for immigration policies,” Adams mentioned. “Our training is to make sure that they know, that our agencies know that. … It’s scenario and role-playing. We have instructed our agencies.”
Whereas Adams has typically bemoaned town’s sanctuary legal guidelines, his silence on how he would particularly uphold them is notable. This has fed rising hypothesis that Adams is avoiding crossing Trump on any challenge as a result of he hopes the president will pardon him if he’s convicted in his federal corruption case.
The mayor additionally gave a full-throated endorsement to Trump’s broader immigration agenda.
“We need to secure our border,” he mentioned. “We need to make sure that we don’t allow those with criminal intentions to come to our city and country. That’s what the American people stated. And that is what we should be looking towards coordinating to make it happen.”
