Mayor Eric Adams told incoming border czar Tom Homan he wants to reopen the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Rikers Island — sparking swift outrage from immigration advocates and setting up an almost-certainly fierce fight with the City Council.
The mayor’s desire to thaw the troubled jail complex’s ICE office — recounted to The Post by Homan — came during a cordial face-to-face between the pair Thursday at Gracie Mansion focused largely on sanctuary cities, deporting alleged criminal migrants and finding more than 320,000 missing migrant children, sources said.
The hardline Homan, who was handpicked by President-elect Donald Trump, said he left the hour-long sit-down convinced that the Democrat and former NYPD captain pulled a “complete 180” on his previously progressive immigration views.
“I truly believe sitting down with him, I saw the cop come out of him,” Homan told The Post Friday. “I think he really wants to help with public safety threats and he really wants to help find these children.”
Sources said the newfound chums devoted “quite a bit” of talk to reopening the Rikers ICE office — which closed after a 2014 sanctuary city law signed by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Adams’ chummy meeting with Homan and his apparent desire to return ICE to Rikers prompted fierce condemnation from progressives.
Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala (D-Manhattan/Bronx) charged that the mayor’s recent comments on immigration policy verge on “harassment of these poor people.”
“Quite frankly, I am disappointed about everything that is coming out of his mouth as of late. He needs to cut it out because we will fight that vigorously and its going to be a problem,” she told The Post.
“Our mayor is completely out of touch with our own laws, what he can and cannot do,” she added, “and he is making the wrong call.”
Ayala recounted a case from before the ICE Rikers office closed in 2015 in which a youngster wrongly picked up for a murder was still threatened with deportation by the feds.
“They released him and handed him over to ICE, and they take this kid — who has no connection to his home country, doesn’t even speak Spanish — but they were threatening to deport him,” she said. “This will only happen more.”
Frequent Adams foil Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) said a legal challenge will surely follow any attempt by the mayor to reopen the ICE office.
He also pointedly threw Adams’ own criminal indictment back in his face.
“The last thing New York City needs is ICE in schools, shelters and jails advancing their mass deportation schemes,” he said. “It’s clear Mayor Adams is more interested in securing a pardon from the incoming Trump administration than protecting immigrant New Yorkers and upholding our sanctuary city laws.”
Adams said he’ll direct his team to explore ways to reopen the ICE office at the lockup using an executive order, Homan said.
“He would like us to [reopen the ICE office], but he said he’s got to talk to his legal staff about what’s the possibility of him doing that through executive order,” Homan said of Adams.
Even if the ICE post on Rikers was reopened, agents would still be handcuffed with little power to snatch suspected migrant criminals under the de Blasio-era law.
The law bars federal immigration authorities from having offices on city Department of Correction grounds “for the purpose of investigating possible violations of civil immigration law.”
A mayor can, using an executive order, greenlight a federal office on DOE property — but only “for purposes unrelated to the enforcement of civil immigration laws,” it states.
Hizzoner’s vow followed a push — first by Councilmember Bob Holden (D-Queens), then by ICE honchos — to reopen the immigration office on Rikers Island.
Restoring the Rikers office would allow ICE officers to keep foreign-born criminal offenders behind bars before deportation, they argued.
The ICE office — assuming the mayor can reopen it — would only be able to handle cases where immigrants are held on a criminal detainer after a conviction.
Councilwoman Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the criminal justice committee overseeing Rikers, didn’t hold back on her disgust at the idea of reviving the ICE office.
“Eric Adams is rolling out the red carpet for the Trump administration and its Project 2025 agenda, beginning with Trump’s destructive plan to tear apart families and abandon our immigrant community,” she said.
“ICE already has the cooperation of the city as it relates to convicted individuals. This mayor is using the GOP’s fear-mongering tactics to serve his own interests and to escape his own dirty dealings. Perhaps he should just switch parties.”
Advocates with the New York Civil Liberties Union pointed to their statement likewise condemning the mayor’s willingness to help “Trump’s deportation machine.”
“Adams is manufacturing a fake, sensationalist public safety crisis,” said Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU’s executive director. “In reality, as city data shows and the Mayor has bragged, public safety is actually improving, even with the increase in new arrivals.
“Adams flirting with the idea of undermining well-established law is political posturing that caters to Trump’s cruelty.”
The stance that Adams is advancing Trump’s immigration agenda was echoed by Homan and sources familiar with their conversation.
“They agreed if New York City changed, then the rest of the country will follow,” one source said.
Homan went further, hinting that his sit-down with Adams paved the way for potential future meetings with mayors of sanctuary cities.
The incoming czar has been involved in a nasty spat with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who recently pledged to shield migrants in his sanctuary city from Trump’s mass deportation — and even said he’s willing to go to be arrested.
“He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail,” Homan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Behind-the-scenes, Homan told Adams that he was willing to use a federal statute that allows the feds prosecute any person or municipality that protects undocumented people against defiant sanctuary city mayors, sources told The Post.
After the Adams’ olive branch, Homan said similar meetings with blue-city mayors could be in the offing.
“I’m not gonna give them credit and call them out until I actually have a sit-down,” he said. “When we start talking and we actually set a meeting up, then I’ll talk about it, but until then I’m not gonna give them credit for talking about something they haven’t done yet.”
Homan’s revelation about the ICE office came after Adams — in a combative news conference held after the highly-anticipated sit-down — declared he was eyeing an executive order to roll back some sanctuary city policies to keep New York City from becoming a “safe haven” for violent criminal migrants.
But the mayor largely kept silent on details aside from saying he’d aim to untangle laws and policies that restrict how the Big Apple can work with ICE.
“I believed him yesterday and we left with the agreement that my staff will work with his staff on the details to get some of this stuff done, especially him writing the executive orders,” Homan told The Post.
