DOJ sues Mayor Eric Adams and New York City officials for being a ‘sanctuary city'

Independent

4 days ago

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and top city officials, alleging that the city's so-called sanctuary policies reflect an 'intentional' attempt to obstruct federal immigration law.
The 37-page complaint filed in Brooklyn claims New York has 'long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country's immigration laws' with decades-long policies to 'thwart federal immigration enforcement.'
'New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. 'If New York City won't stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.'
The Justice Department has filed similar lawsuits in Los Angeles, Chicago and other jurisdictions it accuses of obstructing Trump's anti-immigration agenda with local policies designed to prevent unjust arrests, detentions and removals by limiting cooperation between local and federal law enforcement.
Several city administrations over the past four decades have supported policies limiting how New York Police Department officers interact with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with exceptions for people suspected of terrorism or convicted of violent crimes.
The Trump administration has filed litigation in Democratic-led jurisdictions across the country to override what it considers 'unconstitutional' policies that 'obstruct' the president's attempts to arrest and remove tens of thousands of people living within them.
Following Trump's election, Adams has publicly aligned himself with elements of the Trump administration's immigration agenda and has appeared to curry the president's favor in what critics have suggested is a quid pro quo arrangement to ensure a federal corruption case against him disappears.
In February, then-acting deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed federal prosecutors in New York to drop the case against Adams, with a memo that explicitly stated that the Justice Department made its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence against the mayor.
Adams gave ICE permission to operate inside Rikers Island's jail complex earlier this year, drawing lawsuits from city officials accusing Adams of crafting a 'corrupt bargain' with the president.
That alleged partnership appeared to fray this week, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other top Trump administration officials appeared in New York City to criticize the mayor after an off-duty customs officer was shot by an undocumented immigrant in Manhattan.
The mayor's office has denied that Thursday's lawsuit marks any kind of turning point between Adams and the president, noting that the mayor has joined more than a dozen legal challenges against the administration since Trump took office.
'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,' the mayor's press secretary Kayla Mamelak said in a statement to The Independent.
Mamelak said the mayor supports the 'essence' of sanctuary measures supported 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.'
The lawsuit is under review of the city's law department.
Bondi's lawsuit also follows a string of courthouse arrests inside a federal building in Manhattan, where immigration advocates this week revealed footage from inside what appears to be a makeshift, clandestine detention center.
'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,' said New York City council spokesperson Rendy Desamours. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is among the defendants.
'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,' Desamours said in a statement to The Independent. 'It is the Trump administration indiscriminately targeting people at civil court hearings, detaining high schoolers, and separating families that make our city and nation less safe.'
Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the lawsuit "frivolous at best, and an attack on New York's ability to govern itself at worst.'
'New York must reject Trump's continued assaults to its Constitutional right to pass local laws that serve our communities best,' Awawdeh said. 'Mayor Adams must fight back against this federal overreach and defend the well-being of all New Yorkers.'