Lawsuit to stop ICE from returning to New York jail gains support

New York, (EFE). – A coalition of public defenders, civil rights organizations, and immigrants filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the return of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to New York City’s municipal jail, following an agreement between Mayor Eric Adams and the Trump administration last February.

The document urges the New York State Supreme Court to block the order, warning that it would cause “immediate and irreparable” harm to incarcerated immigrants, their families, and communities in the city, according to a document from the public interest law organization Legal Aid.

The return of an ICE office on Rikers, from which the agency was expelled in 2014 after the City Council passed legislation designating New York City as a “sanctuary” city for immigrants, is temporarily on hold while the case is heard in this court.

The “friend of the court” brief—which allows for arguments on an issue that will support the court’s decision—claims that Executive Order 50, which authorizes ICE to maintain an office at Rikers, “dangerously undermines” refugee laws “and facilitates collusion between city agencies and federal immigration authorities,” the statement said.

Last February, Adams met with Border Czar Tom Homan and pledged that ICE would return to Rikers, where it had been for 20 years, until 2014, detaining immigrants and initiating their deportation proceedings. That decision was so controversial that the City Council itself denounced it in this lawsuit.

The coalition argues to the court that its claim is based on abundant evidence—from past abuses by ICE at Rikers to the federal government’s current pattern of unconstitutional mass deportations—to demonstrate “the grave risk of further harm.”

They assert that the return of ICE will give the federal government not only physical access to the jail but also unrestricted information about people in Department of Corrections custody, family visitation records, and telephone surveillance to drive deportations, particularly of young Latinos and trauma survivors who may qualify for immigration relief.

“Executive Order 50 is a clear violation of the city’s sanctuary protections and invites a new era of racial profiling, unjust deportations, and constitutional violations at Rikers Island,” said Legal Aid’s Director of Special Litigation, Meghan Philip.