A Manhattan judge is blocking Mayor Adams’ administration from letting federal immigration agents operate on Rikers Island for at least another month, extending a temporary restraining order barring the controversial effort from moving forward.
The restraining order was first issued Monday by Justice Mary Rosado in response to a lawsuit from the City Council alleging the mayor’s effort to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Rikers is part of a “corrupt” quid pro quo he entered into with President Trump’s administration to get his federal corruption case dropped.
During a brief Manhattan Supreme Court hearing Friday afternoon, Rosado ruled the restraining order should stay in place at least until the next hearing in the case. Rosado set the next hearing for May 29.
The restraining order says City Hall can’t let feds onto the island, or even start negotiations with Trump’s administration about the terms under which ICE agents would be permitted to operate at the infamous jail.
Before Rosado’s ruling, lawyers for the Council argued the freeze was necessary to prevent “irreparable harm” from being carried out on Rikers and within immigration communities.
Daniel Kornstein, a lawyer for the Council, said opening the door to ICE would mean ramped deportations not just of those convicted of serious crimes, but also accused of more minor infractions.
Pointing to Trump border czar Tom Homan’s comment that he wants to go after immigrants on Rikers even if they’re only accused of shoplifting, Kornstein said he intends to subpoena Homan to testify before the court “so we can drill down what he thinks.”
“It’s for an ulterior purpose: It’s not for criminal enforcement, it’s to expand and drum up deportations,” Kornstein said of the executive order Adams’ administration issued last month to let ICE on the island again.
ICE used to have an office on Rikers where it coordinated deportation actions until 2014, when the city strengthened local sanctuary laws to bar federal immigration enforcement at the island jail, where a majority of inmates are awaiting trial and haven’t been convicted of any crimes.
An attorney for the mayor, Jim Catterson, told the judge the Council had failed to prove any immediate harm: “All this is nothing but speculation.”
“This is nothing more than a political statement masquerading as a petition,” he said.
After the hearing, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, who signed the administration’s Rikers-ICE executive order, said he was “disappointed” by the outcome.
“I think there is no question that we will prevail, but for the lawyers on the other side to have led the court to believe that this was simply maintaining the status quo,” Mastro said.
Adams has denied entering into a quid pro quo with Trump.
The president’s Justice Department officials secured a dismissal of Adams’ corruption indictment this month after informing him they expected the quashing of the case would allow him to play a larger role in helping Trump target undocumented New Yorkers for “mass deportations.”
Adams announced he would seek to let ICE back on Rikers shortly after Trump’s administration first moved to end his case, and the judge presiding over his indictment wrote in an opinion that the dismissal “smacks” of a political “bargain.”
The Council sued the mayor last week over the executive order, claiming the move was the “poisoned fruit” of a “corrupt” deal with Trump. The Council’s suit also argues the order, signed by Mastro, is invalid on its face because it broke procedure laid out by the City Charter requiring the mayor himself to issue such a directive.
After Friday’s ruling, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams lauded Rosado.
“This represents an important step by the court to protect public safety in our city and keep all New Yorkers safe. It validates our efforts to defend New York City from being made even more vulnerable to the Trump administration’s extreme agenda,” the speaker, who’s running for mayor this year, said at a rally outside the courthouse.
Besides the presiding judge’s concerns about a “bargain,” the Trump DOJ’s intervention in Adams’ criminal case set off waves of resignations from the feds who prosecuted him, including then-acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who wrote in a letter that the dropping of the charges was a product of a corrupt deal with the president.
Mastro issued the administration’s Rikers-related executive order late April 8.
According to the mayor’s office, the directive is in compliance with local sanctuary laws because it’s tailored to only permit ICE agents to conduct criminal as opposed to civil enforcement on Rikers.
What that means in practice is that ICE agents can only target immigrants on Rikers if they have federal judicial warrants authorizing their deportation due to serious crimes, like murder and rape. Under the executive order, agents aren’t supposed to be able to target immigrant inmates on the island if they’re only armed with civil deportation detainers.
But Council Democrats and immigration advocates say the Mastro order flouts the spirit of the sanctuary laws in that they fear ICE agents will engage in civil enforcement on Rikers anyway.
They have cited those concerns to the fact that Trump’s administration has shown itself willing to bend various rules as part of its hardline immigration crackdown, including by targeting even some U.S. citizens for deportation and seeking to revoke the status of green card holders over free speech issues.
Mastro said recently there would be “consequences” if ICE is caught engaging in civil enforcement on the island. However, he and the mayor’s office have declined to say what those consequences might be.
Originally Published: April 25, 2025 at 3:42 PM EDT
