NYIC protests in opposition to ICE workplace on Rikers Island durin a rally on Thursday, April 10, 2025 outdoors Metropolis Corridor in decrease Manhattan.
Photograph courtesy NYIC
Caribbean and different immigration advocates and New York Metropolis legislators on Thursday, April 10 rallied in opposition to Mayor Eric Adams’ announcement relating to the opening of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workplace at Rikers Island Correctional Facility in New York that may facilitate the deportation of Caribbean and different immigrants.
New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Make the Street Motion, Bronx Defenders, the Immigrant Protection Undertaking, and the Katal Heart for Fairness, Well being, and Justice joined New York Metropolis legislators, Caribbean and different immigrants, and other people immediately impacted by detention at Rikers Island in holding a rally and press convention outdoors Metropolis Corridor in decrease Manhattan in condemning an government order issued by the mayor on Tuesday permitting ICE to determine an workplace inside Rikers Island jail.
Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and CEO, mentioned ICE has not operated at Rikers Island since 2014, when Native Regulation 58 was enacted.
“New York Metropolis legal guidelines – created by the Metropolis Council over a decade in the past – are clear,” mentioned Awawdeh, whose umbrella group represents over 200 immigrant and refugee teams in New York State. “Our metropolis can’t and should not be within the enterprise of deportation, and as an alternative, our metropolis companies should construct belief with immigrants to allow them to serve all New Yorkers.
“Rikers Island has an extended and documented historical past of violence, abuse, and mismanagement. Beneath Mayor Adams, the circumstances at Rikers have worsened, and within the final six weeks, 5 incarcerated folks have died at Rikers,” he added. “For hundreds of years, immigrants have constructed the financial system and tradition of New York Metropolis – and for years, our sanctuary legal guidelines and insurance policies have protected immigrant New Yorkers from ICE’s predatory enforcement practices.
Nana Gyamfi, government director of Black Alliance for Justice Immigration, mentioned: “This metropolis urgently wants management that fights for and protects Black and Brown New Yorkers from the violence being unleashed by a racist, fascist ‘broligarchy’ hell-bent on destroying our family members. As a substitute, the disgraced Mayor Adams continues to bow down and kiss Trump’s golf sneakers, betraying the very folks he was elected to serve.
“He has already capitulated to racist conservatives, and now he invitations ICE again into Rikers Island—placing our communities in hurt’s manner and stripping away protections,” she mentioned. “New Yorkers kicked ICE out of Rikers years in the past to make town safer (and it has) and to cease town from performing as an confederate to the separation of households.
Rosa Cohen-Cruz, immigration coverage director of The Bronx Defenders, famous that the New York Metropolis Council “made the choice to take away ICE from Rikers Island greater than a decade in the past as a result of they understood that ICE’s presence there undermined due course of and equal entry to justice.
“This government order reopens the door to ICE’s abuse of susceptible New Yorkers,” she mentioned. “We all know firsthand how ICE used Rikers to tear households aside and the way metropolis companies have violated the legislation in collusion with them.
Lucas Marquez, director of civil rights and legislation reform at Brooklyn Defenders, mentioned that this group sees “each day how ICE enforcement violates peoples’ rights, separates households, and unlawfully detains folks in harmful circumstances in places removed from their communities.
“New York Metropolis has lengthy acknowledged that sanctuary legal guidelines make all New Yorkers safer and that metropolis companies shouldn’t be within the enterprise of collaborating with ICE,” he mentioned. “Permitting ICE again on Rikers flies within the face of those ideas and undermines New Yorkers’ constitutional rights.
Thirty New York Metropolis Council Members, in addition to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the Comptroller, the Brooklyn Borough President, the Manhattan Borough President, and the Queens Borough President, despatched a letter to the Mayor on Thursday condemning the manager order, calling for it to be rescinded and associated paperwork turned over, and standing by New York Metropolis sanctuary legal guidelines.
“This government order is deeply regarding, notably given Choose Ho’s latest ruling on Mayor Adams’ corruption case, the tried quid professional quo, and the collection of extremely troubling latest occasions between the Trump administration and our metropolis’s mayor,” mentioned New York Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, not relations with the mayor. “It’s exhausting to not see this motion as linked to the dismissal of the mayor’s case and his willingness to cooperate with Trump’s excessive deportation agenda that’s eradicating residents with out justification or due course of.
“The mayor’s choice to compromise town’s sovereignty, threaten chaos, and threat hurt to our households in the end resulted within the resignation of 4 deputy mayors,” she added. “As we’ve got made abundantly clear, Native Regulation 58 of 2014 has clear pointers that prohibit the usage of workplace area on Rikers for the enforcement of civil immigration enforcement.
“The Council is intently reviewing the order and is ready to defend in opposition to violations of the legislation to guard the security of all New Yorkers,” Speaker Adams continued.
Public Advocate Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, mentioned, “The mayor has lengthy appeared for each alternative to broaden collaboration with ICE—whether or not it was his personal place or Donald Trump’s.
“By deceptive the general public about our sanctuary insurance policies, he’s trying to make it extra acceptable to chip away at them and deport extra immigrant New Yorkers, no matter criminality or ‘illegality,’” he mentioned.
“This mayor has already demonstrated a willingness to disregard legal guidelines he doesn’t like, particularly on Rikers, and this newest instance is nothing greater than an try to assist the Trump deportation machine that rips immigrant households from their properties and college students from their campuses,” Williams added.
