The temporary restraining order barring Mayor Eric Adams’ administration from allowing federal immigration authorities to re-establish offices on Rikers Island has been extended for another week while a state judge further considers a preliminary injunction in the case brought by the City Council to block the move.
On Tuesday, Judge Mary Rosado extended the current temporary restraining order (TRO) she issued in April and said she expects to issue a decision “in the next week or so, ” following a June 3 hearing which brought intense legal scrutiny to Executive Order (EO) 50.
Signed in April by First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, EO 50 authorized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to reopen an office at the embattled jail for the first time in over a decade. In 2014, the city enacted a sanctuary law that effectively removed ICE from Rikers Island by prohibiting the agency from operating inside city-run jails, aiming to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The City Council first sued to halt the plan on April 15, alleging it violated New York City’s sanctuary laws and stemmed from a quid pro quo in which federal prosecutors dismissed a criminal indictment against Mayor Adams in exchange for renewed ICE access. Mayor Adams, his attorney, and senior DOJ officials have disputed that there was any quid pro quo.
Urging the judge to block EO 50, City Council lawyers continued their assertion Tuesday that the executive order was part of a corrupt bargain between Mayor Eric Adams and the Trump administration.
“There was a quid pro quo,” argued the Council’s attorney Katie Rosenfeld. “Mayor Adams agreed to allow ICE back on Rikers. The Trump administration dropped the charges against him. That is a quid pro quo.”
The Council presented a timeline that it claims demonstrates a corrupt sequence: On Feb. 14, Mayor Adams appeared with acting ICE Director Tom Homan on Fox News and publicly endorsed returning ICE to Rikers, days after Trump’s Justice Department directed Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Adams’ criminal corruption case.
Within weeks, Executive Order 50 was issued. “Mayor Adams publicly announced that ICE would be returning to Rikers seven weeks before he purportedly asked First Deputy Mastro to look into the issue,” the attorney said. “This was a foregone conclusion.”
‘Rhetoric bereft of facts’
Arguing that the mayor should have recused himself, the Council pointed out that Adams did not seek guidance from the city’s Conflict of Interest Board and claimed his delegation of the matter to Mastro was “completely insufficient.”
“If you want to recuse yourself, you need to do so fully. You cannot be involved in any way,” Rosenfeld said, asserting that the delegation was simply to “carry out the decision he had already publicly announced.”
The Council further claimed that reinstating ICE’s presence would result in “irreparable harm” — particularly to undocumented detainees held at Rikers who could face deportation without due process. “People’s constitutional rights will be violated if this executive order is allowed to go into effect,” she argued, adding that most detainees are pretrial and being held solely because they cannot afford bail.
Federal immigration officials have signaled aggressive intentions. In a televised statement during the Feb. 14 Fox News appearance referenced in court, ICE Director Tom Homan said: “I want everybody. I’m coming for everybody on Rikers Island.”
Defense counsel for the Mayor’s office pushed back, calling the allegations speculative and politically motivated.
“There is not a single present fact in this record that indicates imminence of any harm,” said James M. Catterson, arguing that the Council’s case relied on the word “will” dozens of times. “It is nothing but naked political speech masqueraded as legal argument. It is rhetoric bereft of facts.”
Continuing his argument that the Council’s case was premature, he stated, “The clearest example of that is the memorandum of understanding has not been executed with ICE. It’s a proposed memorandum of understanding.”
He contended that no actual harm had occurred, emphasizing that critics should have waited until the agreement was finalized and its consequences were observable. “Had anyone waited until it was executed and actually seen what happened and actually had a live, real harm, as opposed to speculation, we would be in a different position.”
Catterson also denied the existence of any quid pro quo, saying, “There is no bargain with the federal government. They have nothing to keep over his head.” He also defended the legality of the Mayor’s delegation to Mastro.
Still, the Council’s legal team maintained that both common law and the city’s Charter require government actions to be free of conflicts, or even the appearance of them. “This is not about timing. This is about the agreement that occurred to have this bargain, and the fact that the bargain was carried out,” Rosenfeld said.
‘Real harm is already happening’
Outside the lower Manhattan court Tuesday, a coalition of immigrant rights groups, public defenders, and City Council members gathered to express their gratitude for Judge Rosado’s decision to keep ICE from setting up shop on Rikers for now with the extension of the TRO. While remaining cautiously optimistic, the court will issue a preliminary injunction next week, they vow to continue legal and public pressure if the ruling goes against them.
Brooklyn City Council Members Sandy Nurse and Alexa Avilés, who chair the Council’s Criminal Justice and Immigration Committees, respectively, were direct in their condemnation of Mayor Adams.
“We know that the bargain that Mayor Adams struck with Trump in exchange to drop his criminal charges for setting up and having unfettered access to New York City and our facilities, and our public facilities, specifically Rikers, is harmful, and we’re already seeing, and continue to see the harm that the Trump administration is doing,” Nurse said. “They’re literally kidnapping minors, young people going to high school, people who are here following the law.”
Avilés echoed the accusation of quid pro quo: “The President of the United States and DHS are breaking the law. And we have a mayor who clearly sold his own hide to make sure they disappeared his corruption charges and threw immigrant communities under the bus.”
ICE’s justification that it needs an office at Rikers to better access information and coordinate enforcement was also dismissed by Meghna Philip Director of Special Litigation at the Legal Aid Society as a “pretext.”
“ICE already has ample resources at its disposal conducting enforcement, and federal criminal law enforcement already have many opportunities to collaborate with state and local law enforcements,” she said. “An ICE office on Rikers is not necessary for either of those things to take place. This is about mass deportation.”
Pushing back on claims made by Catterson, Meghna Philip Director of Special Litigation at the Legal Aid Society argued in court and reiterated afterward that harm is already occurring, including a Legal Aid client she said was unlawfully transferred from city custody to ICE.
“These harms cannot be turned back. You cannot turn back family separation. You cannot turn back the atrocious breach of public trust,” said Philip.
