Speaking in his weekly “off topic” press briefing from City Hall on Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams defended his effort to re-open an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office on the Rikers Island jail complex, a move which was temporarily blocked by a New York judge on Monday evening. Adams, who is running for reelection as an independent candidate, dismissed concerns about the plan’s unpopularity, and leveled veiled criticisms at people who have been targeted by ICE’s mass deportation policies.
The mayor cast doubt on the idea that the re-opening of the ICE office on Rikers was a concern for New Yorkers. “Who are these people?” The mayor asked rhetorically, adding that he has “a feeling of what is concerning people” thanks to public events like town halls, and that members of the media only believe it to be important because they interact “in a bubble.” Numerous public officials in New York have expressed outrage at ICE recently over the detainment of Merwil Gutiérrez, a Venezuelan asylum seeker living in the Bronx who was sent to the CECOT mega prison in El Salvador. Gutiérrez’s father claims one agent arresting his son realized he was not who they were looking for, with another affirming that they should “take him anyway.”
The mayor declined to comment on a New York judge’s move Monday evening that stopped an executive order to reopen the ICE office in Rikers Island, a policy decision that he has delegated to his first deputy, Randy Mastro. “Let the first deputy mayor and the court play out,” he told reporters on Tuesday, “and whatever way it goes, I’m going to follow the rule.”
Merwil Gutiérrez’s disappearance follows cases like those of Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which have gained national media attention over their apparent lack of due process, having been taken by authorities – and in Gutiérrez’s and Abrego Garcia’s cases, deported to a prison from which they have no expectation of release – without ever appearing before a judge or formally accused of wrongdoing. Adams stated clearly that he did indeed “reaffirm [his] commitment that people must have due process,” but also that he did not believe that such treatment abridged their rights. “There’s a court system that will determine if someone’s right was violated,” Adams said.
The mayor made veiled criticisms of Chris Van Hollen, a senator who has taken up Abrego Garcia’s case and gone to El Salvador to meet with him, saying that he himself was “not going to be drinking tequila” with someone like the deported migrant, and referred to him as a “gang member” even though Abrego Garcia has no criminal record and was a documented asylum seeker before his deportation. Van Hollen had appeared in pictures with Abrego Garcia in a restaurant with drinks at their table when they met in El Salvador, some of which had sugar or salt on the rim and a cherry. Van Hollen claims El Salvadoran government officials who helped arrange the meeting placed those drinks as part of an effort to make it seem that Abrego Garcia was not being mistreated and to cast doubt on the seriousness of the senator’s efforts. The senator has managed to get Abrego Garcia moved from CECOT, which is notorious for human rights abuses.
The mayor made similarly indirect comments about Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder married to an American citizen, who was taken by ICE agents because of his advocacy for Palestine in the midst of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. On this front Adams was less reserved, making a string of accusations that have no factual basis. “If you’re handing out literature lifting up Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, if you’re trying to recruit to do so, if you damage property, because you want to break into a building, somewhere on a college campus – there are repercussions because of that,” the mayor said. There is no evidence to date that Khalil had engaged in the activities that Adams described, with the government relying instead on a Cold-War-era immigration law called the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states they can deport him if they have “reasonable ground to believe” that his presence hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.
