Manuel Castro, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said on Thursday his office has been kept in the dark on the mayor’s promised executive order allowing ICE to operate on Rikers Island.
The commissioner, under questioning during a City Council budget hearing, said that he has not seen a draft order and doesn’t know its status.
“MOIA has not been part of any of these conversations to change these laws,” the commissioner said, emphasizing that no parts of the city’s sanctuary laws have yet been changed and that he didn’t want to opine on the laws “so as not to confuse our community.”
Mayor Adams last month announced he was working on an action that would allow federal immigration authorities into the jail complex to target “violent criminals and gangs,” although in the weeks since he has not provided a timeline or status update, simply saying his lawyers were handling it.
Brooklyn Councilmember Lincoln Restler said it was “disrespectful” that Castro and his team showed up unable to provide further information about the order, which he said would be “deeply disruptive and harmful.”
Molly Shaeffer, the administration’s asylum-seeker affairs director, also said she has not been consulted on the Rikers executive order.
Alexa Aviles, the chairperson of the City Council’s immigration committee, later called the lack of details Castro could provide “utterly disappointing.”
Castro said after the hearing that “sometimes we weigh in, sometimes we don’t” on new legislation.
City elected officials and advocates have slammed the plan to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement back on Rikers Island, saying it raises significant due process issues and may run against the city’s sanctuary policies.
Manuel Castro, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said on Thursday his office has been kept in the dark on the mayor’s promised executive order to allow ICE to operate on Rikers Island. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
The announcement of the pending executive order followed Adams’ meeting with President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Feb. 13.
The mayor has been accused of entering into a corrupt agreement with the Trump administration to get his federal corruption indictment dismissed in exchange for helping the president’s immigration agenda.
“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Homan said during a joint appearance with the mayor on “Fox & Friends” a day later.
Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for the mayor, said that she did not have any update of the timing of the potential order, and that the city’s Law Department is “evaluating all options.”
“Not sure why MOIA would be looped on an EO about public safety,” she responded in a text.
With Graham Rayman