The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday against Mayor Eric Adams over the city’s sanctuary policies. Officials argued that the rules, which restrict city officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, are unconstitutional and amount to “intentional sabotage of federal immigration enforcement.”
The legal action comes days after an off-duty customs agent was shot in the face during what police said was an attempted robbery in an Upper Manhattan park. Federal officials later said the two men arrested entered the country illegally and blamed the shooting on the city’s sanctuary policies. The lawsuit argues the shooting could have been prevented if the immigration policies weren’t in place.
The lawsuit represents escalating pressure on Adams, who has cultivated a close relationship with President Donald Trump and criticized aspects of the city’s immigration policies.
The mayor’s corruption indictment was dismissed in April at the direction of Trump’s Justice Department, amid allegations that he offered to assist federal officials with immigration enforcement in exchange for his charges being dismissed. Adams has denied the allegations.
Department of Justice officials said the lawsuit seeks to stop the nation’s largest city from impeding immigration enforcement.
“New York City has long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country’s immigration laws,” the lawsuit states. “Its history as a sanctuary city dates back to 1989, and its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement have only intensified since.”
The mayor’s office said the administration would review the lawsuit while reiterating Adams’ own criticism of the sanctuary rules.
“The job of a mayor is to protect the safety of every single person in their city — and that’s exactly what Mayor Adams has worked to do every day for nearly four years,” Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for Adams, said on Thursday. “Keeping New Yorkers safe also means making sure they feel safe.“
She added: “That’s why the mayor supports the essence of the local laws put in place by the City Council — but he has also been clear they go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets and has urged the Council to reexamine them to ensure we can effectively work with the federal government to make our city safer. So far, the Council has refused.”
Rendy Desamours, a City Council spokesperson, said the Trump administration is making people less safe by targeting people in court, detaining high school students and separating families.
“[Attorney General] Pam Bondi may want to distract from reality, but the facts are clear: the evidence consistently shows that cities with sanctuary laws are safer than those without them,” he said in a statement. “When residents feel comfortable reporting crime and cooperating with local law enforcement, we are all safer, something both Republican and Democratic mayors of New York City have recognized.”
Justice Department officials argued in the legal complaint that the city’s sanctuary policies “allow dangerous criminals to escape the reach of the Federal Government.”
The lawsuit says city officials make it overly difficult for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to arrest immigrants in the country illegally who commit violent crimes.
It blames the added challenges in part on the city’s strict standards for detainers, when Department of Correction officials notify the federal government of an immigrant’s upcoming release and hold them in jail for extra time so ICE can arrest them.
Between June 2023 and July 2024, the Department of Correction honored only 4% of ICE’s detainer requests, according to the legal filing.
When jail officials don’t follow detainer requests, the lawsuit states, immigration agents have to find and arrest people out in the community, which federal officials argue is less safe.
The suit quotes border czar Tom Homan in a television appearance on Jan. 5, “It’s much easier to arrest a public safety threat in the safety and security of a public jail than out in the street, because the officer is safer that way, the alien’s safer that way, the community is safer that way.”
The lawsuit accuses the city of violating the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, alleging the city’s sanctuary city policies “create obstacles to the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
The Justice Department is requesting a judge to declare several New York’s sanctuary city policies invalid and to issue an order that would permanently block them from being implemented in the future.
Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro signed an executive order this spring that would allow federal immigration officials to have an office on Rikers Island to work with local officers on criminal investigations.
The City Council sued the Adams administration over the order, arguing in court that it would lead to illegal deportations of people charged with crimes. A judge temporarily blocked the order from taking effect.
Last year, New York City agreed to pay nearly $100 million to about 20,000 undocumented immigrants who were held in city jails past their release date so immigration officials could arrest them.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Ben Feuerherd contributed reporting.
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