Mayor Eric Adams, NYC call on ICE to end migrant courthouse arrests immediately

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday joined calls for ICE to immediately end the “illegal” arrests of migrants reporting for their hearings at a Lower Manhattan federal immigration building.

The city Law Department filed court papers in support of a lawsuit that seeks to halt the arrests by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement at 26 Federal Plaza, arguing the blitzes are driving fear among the Big Apple’s roughly 3 million immigrants. 

“From my first days as a rookie cop to my current role as mayor of New York City, my job is, and has always been, to keep law-abiding New Yorkers safe,” Adams said in a statement. “We should allow New Yorkers to feel secure to attend legal proceedings in their pursuit to obtain legal status.”

The arrests have driven many to avoid courts, police and other basic city services for fear of detention and removal, sending otherwise law-abiding immigrants underground, claims the suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups.

The Adams administration’s public support of the suit, filed in Manhattan federal court earlier this month, marks the mayor’s strongest stance yet against President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Adams has previously appeared to cozy up to the White House, including pushing to rid the city of its sanctuary city status and to bring back ICE to Rikers Island — moves that he has repeatedly defended in court.

Hizzoner and the city, in the amicus brief filed Tuesday, argued the ICE arrests at 26 Federal Plaza are not only illegal, but “undermines the public interest,” by “deterring City residents from participating in immigration proceedings.”

“Free access to courts is a pillar of the rule of law, but our judicial system cannot work as it should, as it must, if courthouses are used as traps for those who are simply following what the law requires,” the filing states. 

The city’s top lawyer, Muriel Goode-Trufant, said that the Big Apple has become the “epicenter of the Trump administration’s courthouse arrest campaign,” constraining the ability for immigrants — and New Yorkers at-large — to seek justice through the legal system.

“With every illegal courthouse arrest, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is chipping away at the bedrock principles of fairness and due process that support our entire system of justice,” Goode-Trufant said in a statement.

A study of federal records by THE CITY revealed that half of all immigration court arrests in the country this spring occurred in Manhattan, but more recently, those busts have ground to a halt as immigrants have largely ceased showing up to courthouses altogether.

While this is the first time the Adams administration has supported a wholesale end to the arrests, the city filed briefs earlier this summer in support of individuals caught up in the ICE dragnet — including several public school students. 

“No one in our city should feel forced to hide in the shadows or be afraid to use resources, and that includes sending children to school, going to a hospital when sick, calling 911 when in danger, or going to a court hearing when called upon to do so,” Adams said Tuesday.

One of the several lawsuits filed over the ICE arrests scored a victory last week when a judge ordered the agency to immediately improve conditions at a makeshift holding cell inside the federal immigration courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza.

The order was walked back slightly when government lawyers successfully argued that detained immigrants should not have access to toothbrushes.