A stunning turnaround from NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who is now calling for NYC’s sanctuary city law to be changed so that some illegal immigrants who commit felonies can be turned over to ICE for deportation.
Mayor Adams came out in favor of modifying the city’s sanctuary status laws Tuesday to make it easier for his administration to help federal authorities deport immigrants suspected of crimes — embracing a policy prescription mostly espoused by conservatives amid the local migrant crisis.
The sanctuary laws, which date back to the 1980s, prohibit city government workers and agencies from helping federal immigration authorities with tracking down and detaining immigrants residing in the five boroughs for deportation purposes.
There are exceptions to the sanctuary laws that allow the city to cooperate with the feds in some cases, including if an immigrant has been convicted of a serious or violent crime. Existing laws do not, however, permit the city to cooperate with federal immigration authorities if a foreign national has merely been accused of a crime.
In a Tuesday afternoon press briefing, Adams said the current laws are too lax and that he wants to return to a standard that was in place under former Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch. Under that standard, the city could cooperate with federal authorities, including by detaining immigrants on their behalf for deportation purposes, if they were “suspected” — not only convicted — of crimes.
The mayor didn’t say whether he wants to have the ability to cooperate with
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials only in cases involving immigrants suspected of violent crimes, or if he’d like the standard to be broadened to cover any suspected criminal wrongdoing. A spokesman for the mayor did not immediately return a request after the briefing.
Adams first threw his weight behind altering them during a town hall event in Brooklyn on Monday night, breaking his silence on the question. At that event, he didn’t elaborate on how exactly he’d like the laws to be changed, though, only saying he’d like to “modify” them.
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