A Manhattan judge has struck down an effort by Mayor Adams’ administration to let federal immigration authorities operate on Rikers Island, ruling the action was ethically “impermissible” because it came on the heels of President Trump’s Department of Justice securing a highly controversial dismissal of the mayor’s corruption indictment.
The effort dates back to April 8, when Randy Mastro, Adams’ first deputy mayor, issued an executive order that sought to let ICE agents reopen an office on Rikers in order to conduct criminal immigration enforcement at the city jail complex.
The order infuriated City Council Democrats, who filed a lawsuit alleging it amounted to an illegal favor Adams’ team did for Trump in exchange for the president’s DOJ having just days earlier quashed his criminal case. In dropping his case, Trump appointees at DOJ wrote Adams’ prosecution on bribery and campaign finance fraud charges needed to be tossed because it was preventing the mayor from helping advance Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda.
In a seven-page ruling released Monday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Mary Rosado sided with the Council Democrats’ argument, writing Mastro’s order is “null and void” because it flew in the face of city law barring public officials from taking actions on matters in which they may have a personal conflict.
In reaching that conclusion, Rosado noted that on the same day Trump’s DOJ first moved to kill his indictment, Adams appeared with Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, on Fox News. In that live appearance, Homan told the mayor that unless he figured out a way to get ICE on Rikers, he will be “in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
“The timeline of public statements and the ongoing criminal prosecution so clearly demonstrate an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest,” the judge wrote in the new ruling. “The appearance of this conflict and Mayor Adams’ failure to recuse himself fully tainted the entire process.”
FILE – The Rikers Island jail complex in New York with the Manhattan skyline in the background. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
In a statement hours after Rosado’s ruling, Mastro vowed to file an appeal and noted the judge did not dispute “the substance of our executive order.”
“There is also no actual conflict of interest here, and the mayor responded to the appearance of a conflict by delegating this issue to me as his first deputy mayor — whom the judge herself described as an ‘accomplished and highly educated attorney’ — and I acted entirely independently of the mayor,” Mastro continued in his statement.
The first deputy mayor, who used to serve in ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration, also appeared to accuse the judge of playing politics. “It is a shame that we can’t put politics aside and allow the executive branch to do its job of making New York City as safe as possible for the 8.5 million New Yorkers who call this city home,” he added.
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who led the charge on the lawsuit, called Rosado’s ruling “a major win.”
“We’re pleased that the court recognized Mayor Adams and Randy Mastro’s attempt to do Trump’s bidding and betray their obligation to New Yorkers as unlawful,” the speaker said in a statement issued jointly with Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala, Council Criminal Justice Committee Chairwoman Sandy Nurse and Council Immigration Committee Chairwoman Alexa Aviles. “This decision protects the civil rights of all New Yorkers from being violated and makes our city safer.”
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Even before Monday’s ruling, Rosado had put a temporary injunction in place barring Adams’ administration from letting ICE into the city’s jails.
The mayor’s decision to have Mastro issue the executive order appeared aimed at creating some distance between himself and the action.
However, Rosado ruled that move was immaterial because the mayor had prior to the issuance of the order let it be known that he wanted to figure out a way to get ICE working at Rikers.
“The argument that the conflict was cleansed by delegating to First Deputy Mayor Mastro is farcical,” she wrote in her decision. “First Deputy Mayor Mastro is not independent of Mayor Adams.”
Under the de Blasio administration, the city barred ICE from operating on Rikers out of concern that the feds would use a presence on the island to target undocumented immigrants charged, not convicted, of crimes, including minor offenses.
Mastro’s order was tailored to only let ICE conduct criminal immigration enforcement as opposed to civil. However, Council Democrats were skeptical ICE would abide by those rules, noting the Trump administration has shown a willingness to circumvent laws and judicial orders as part of its hard-line crackdown on undocumented immigration.
The undoing of Mastro’s executive order comes as Adams faces a fresh Trump-related controversy, with sources saying he is considering suspending his longshot independent bid for reelection in exchange for a job in the president’s administration. Trump is reportedly undertaking the effort to get Adams out of the race in order to maximize ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s chances of beating Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner in November’s mayoral election.
