New York Dem Tells Adams It’s Time To Turn ‘Tough Talk’ On Immi­gra­tion Into Action

New York City May­or Eric Adams declared that he is will­ing to work with the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to help crack down on ille­gal migrant crime, but a fel­low Demo­c­rat is push­ing him to prove he means what he’s say­ing.

Adams said Tues­day that he is pre­pared to sit down with soon-to-be bor­der czar Tom Homan to dis­cuss the incom­ing administration’s plans to deport crim­i­nal ille­gal migrants out of the Big Apple, and he dared his oppo­nents to “can­cel me” if they aren’t hap­py with it. How­ev­er, NYC Coun­cil Mem­ber Robert Hold­en, a Demo­c­rat and co-chair­man of the mod­er­ate Com­mon-Sense Cau­cus, respond­ed by push­ing the may­or to “show his com­mit­ment” by rolling back a num­ber of sanc­tu­ary poli­cies that are hold­ing Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) agents back. (RELATED: ‘I Am Trau­ma­tized’: Migrants In Mex­i­co Choos­ing To Turn Around After Trump’s Elec­tion Vic­to­ry)

“Tough talk is good, but actions speak loud­er,” Hold­en said in a Wednes­day state­ment. “The May­or had the chance to amend or repeal sanc­tu­ary city laws through his Char­ter Revi­sion Com­mis­sion but chose not to.”

“Now, it’s time to right these wrongs,” Hold­en con­tin­ued. “To tru­ly show com­mit­ment to pub­lic safe­ty, May­or Adams should reopen the ICE office at Rik­ers Island and give the NYPD, DOC [Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions], and DOP [Depart­ment of Pro­ba­tion] the abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate with ICE and hon­or detain­ers for crim­i­nal migrants.”

NYC’s sta­tus as a sanc­tu­ary city has long been a con­tentious issue with local lead­ers, espe­cial­ly in recent months as a spate of high-pro­file crimes alleged­ly com­mit­ted by ille­gal migrants have become nation­al head­lines.

For­mer May­or Bill de Bla­sio in 2014 signed into law a bill that large­ly pro­hibits the New York Police Depart­ment from coop­er­at­ing with fed­er­al immi­gra­tion author­i­ties, and he enact­ed leg­is­la­tion in 2018 that dou­bled down on the pol­i­cy. A major facet of de Blasio’s sanc­tu­ary city roll­out was the evic­tion of ICE agents from Rik­ers Island, a major prison facil­i­ty locat­ed in The Bronx.

Bar­ring ICE agents from prison facil­i­ties makes their job incred­i­bly more dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous because they are forced to make appre­hen­sions of crim­i­nal migrants out in the pub­lic, fed­er­al immi­gra­tion author­i­ties argue.

NYC has been hit par­tic­u­lar­ly hard by the nation­al immi­gra­tion cri­sis. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of asy­lum seek­ers have land­ed in the Big Apple since 2022 and offi­cials have burned through bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars try­ing to man­age the sit­u­a­tion, accord­ing to city offi­cials. The cri­sis has forced Adams to grow increas­ing­ly less sym­pa­thet­ic to the city’s sanc­tu­ary laws.

How­ev­er, when Com­mon Sense Cau­cus mem­bers intro­duced leg­is­la­tion ear­li­er this year that would’ve rolled back sanc­tu­ary city leg­is­la­tion, it went nowhere in the NYC Coun­cil, which is dom­i­nat­ed by lib­er­al law­mak­ers. Mem­bers of the mod­er­ate cau­cus group said Adams could’ve done more to bring the issue to vot­ers when he cre­at­ed the Char­ter Revi­sion Com­mis­sion, which had the author­i­ty to hand the deci­sion to vot­ers by plac­ing it on the Novem­ber bal­lot.

“The fact is that our city’s sanc­tu­ary city sta­tus has become deeply unpop­u­lar, even among Demo­c­rat vot­ers, and was almost cer­tain to be defeat­ed by vot­ers if a vote was allowed,” GOP Coun­cil­woman Vick­ie Pal­adi­no said in a state­ment to the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion in July after the Com­mis­sion opt­ed not to include a ref­er­en­dum on the sanc­tu­ary city laws this year.

“But once again, the par­ty which lec­tures us about ‘democ­ra­cy’ is not actu­al­ly inter­est­ed in prac­tic­ing it,” she con­tin­ued.

In response to Homan’s dec­la­ra­tion that he would not tol­er­ate sanc­tu­ary city lead­ers get­ting in the way of his upcom­ing crack­down on ille­gal immi­gra­tion, Hold­en wrote a let­ter to Adams, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and oth­er local lead­ers urg­ing them to change course because “fed­er­al statute explic­it­ly pro­hibits the har­bor­ing, shield­ing, or con­ceal­ing of ille­gal aliens, par­tic­u­lar­ly those engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ties.”

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