NEW YORK, CMC – The New York Metropolis Council has filed a lawsuit requesting a brief restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction in opposition to Mayor Eric
Adams’ Govt Order 50 allowed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) company to function an workplace at Rikers Island Correctional Facility that may facilitate the deportation of Caribbean and different immigrants.
First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro issued the manager order on April 8. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, contends that it’s “illegal, tainted by the battle of curiosity created by the corrupt cut price the mayor entered into—his freedom in change for an ICE workplace.
“The regulation is evident that the mayor is unable to treatment that battle of curiosity just by delegating his authority to open an ICE workplace to Deputy Mayor Mastro,” it says.
The lawsuit seeks a right away halt of any related exercise and descriptions how the “illegal motion” would undermine public security in New York Metropolis by eroding belief between native authorities, together with native regulation enforcement, and New Yorkers.
It additionally argues that the mayor by no means delegated the desired responsibility to Mastro, as required by the Metropolis Constitution.
“As soon as once more, this Metropolis Council is standing agency to guard the rights and security of all New Yorkers in opposition to assaults by the Trump administration—as a result of town’s mayor gained’t cease inserting his pursuits forward of the folks of our metropolis,” stated Speaker Adrienne Adams, a candidate for Mayor of the Metropolis of New York in June’s Democratic Major.
“Mayor Eric Adams indicated his intention for this government order when the Trump administration tried to dismiss his corruption case in what prosecutors and Decide Ho noticed as a quid professional quo.
“The mayor has compromised our metropolis’s sovereignty and is now threatening the security of all New Yorkers, which is why we’re submitting this lawsuit to halt his unlawful order that he shamelessly previewed on the Fox Information sofa with Tom Homan,” she added. “When New Yorkers are afraid of cooperating with our metropolis’s police and discouraged from reporting crime and looking for assist, it makes everybody in our metropolis much less protected.
The Council famous that Federal Decide Dale Ho, who declined to dismiss the case instantly and sought unbiased arguments, indicated, “Every thing right here smacks of a cut price: dismissal of the indictment in change for immigration coverage concessions.”
Speaker Adrienne Adams and the Council are doing exactly what this second calls for: standing up for New Yorkers in opposition to a mayor failing to be accountable to the folks of our metropolis,” she added.
One other Council Member, Alexa Avilés, chair of the Committee on Immigration, stated, “Turning Rikers into an outpost for the Trump administration’s excessive agenda has nothing to do with defending New Yorkers and every thing to do with the mayor defending himself.
Final Thursday, Caribbean and different immigration advocates and New York Metropolis legislators rallied in opposition to Adams’ announcement concerning the opening.
Of an ICE workplace on Rikers Island.
New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Make the Highway Motion, Bronx Defenders, the Immigrant Protection Challenge, and the Katal Heart for Fairness, Well being, and Justice joined New York Metropolis legislators, Caribbean and different immigrants, and folks instantly impacted by detention at Rikers Island in holding a rally and press convention exterior Metropolis Corridor in decrease.
Manhattan in condemning the manager order issued by the mayor.
Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and CEO, stated ICE has not operated at Rikers Island since 2014, when Native Regulation 58 was enacted.
The mayor’s Govt Order 50 notes that Rikers Island is the positioning of correctional services underneath the jurisdiction of the Division of Corrections (DOC) and at present homes members and associates of designated terrorist organizations, amongst different people incarcerated there.
