Queens pol says Adams mischaracterized chat about bringing ICE to Rikers

City Councilmember Robert Holden said Mayor Eric Adams mischaracterized a conversation they had about bringing ICE to Rikers Island, a plan that has landed the mayor in court. File photo by John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit

By Jacob Kaye

Don’t say Mayor Eric Adams had anything to do with the plan to bring federal immigration agents to Rikers Island.

The executive order allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct criminal investigations in the city’s troubled jail complex? That was a decision made by Adams’ first deputy mayor, according to the mayor.

And the idea itself? That came from Queens City Councilmember Robert Holden, the mayor said on Tuesday.

“The first person that brought that to me about…ICE on Rikers was Councilman Holden,” Adams said during his weekly “off topic” press conference. “Holden reached out. As a matter of fact, I have a few text messages from him…saying, ‘Listen, why aren't we doing this?’”

“This was one of his ideas,” he added. “He was almost annoying me.”

After explaining his version of the decision that has now landed his administration in court, Adams told reporters to reach out to Holden “about the conversation [he] had with Eric.”

But Holden, who spoke with the Eagle on the phone on Thursday, said the mayor mischaracterized their interaction.

Holden also said Adams unfairly blamed the Queens lawmaker for putting into motion the plan that has not only resulted in a lawsuit, but in accusations that the mayor offered Rikers Island to the Trump administration in exchange for the dismissal of the corruption charges he once faced.

“I looked at it [like the mayor was deflecting to me],” Holden said.

The conservative councilmember who is technically a Democrat but often votes with the Council’s Republican members said he spoke with someone in the Adams administration – he declined to specify who – after hearing the mayor’s remarks and was told “the mayor wasn’t blaming you.”

“Well, that's the way I took it, like he was deflecting, or at least saying it was Holden's idea,” Holden said.

The councilmember, who is in his final term, also said he took exception to the idea that he was “annoying” Adams about the idea.

“I didn't think I twisted his arm,” he said. “I didn't hound him.”

Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for the mayor, said that Holden misconstrued what the mayor was saying about their communications about bringing ICE to Rikers. According to Mamelak Altus, Adams was joking when he said Holden was annoying him and was generally trying to communicate that while the Council may be suing him over the order, there are members of the legislature, like Holden, that support the plan.

“Since the start of this administration, Mayor Adams has explored and instituted every possible avenue to keep New Yorkers safe,” Mamelak Altus said in a statement. “His ideologies have not – and will never – change.”

Holden confirmed on Thursday that he remained supportive of the controversial effort to open Rikers Island up to ICE.

“I'm glad that they're doing it,” Holden said.

But whether or not ICE will actually be allowed to operate on Rikers remains up in the air.

The City Council sued Adams earlier this month over the executive order opening Rikers to ICE issued by First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, which they claimed violated the city’s charter – the lawsuit made no claim about the order violating the city’s sanctuary city laws, which prevent ICE from conducting civil immigration enforcement in New York City.

The suit alleged that Adams betrayed his position as mayor when he pushed for the order, putting the interests of the federal government and himself above New Yorkers. Through the order, Adams used "position as a public servant" to obtain "private or personal advantage," in violation of the city charter, the Council claimed.

“Executive Order 50 is the poisoned fruit of Mayor Adams's deal with the Trump administration: if the mayor cooperated with the Administration's immigration enforcement priorities, including by permitting ICE to operate on Rikers, the charges against him would be dismissed,” the lawsuit read. “Although it purports to be the product of Mastro's ‘independent assessment, whether and under what circumstances to permit federal law enforcement authorities to have a presence on Rikers Island,’ all available evidence confirms that the issuance of Executive Order 50 was the outcome demanded by the resolution of the mayor's criminal case, rather than the product of any ‘independent assessment’ by Mastro.”

A judge on Monday ordered the city to halt its plans to bring ICE to the jails until attorneys for the mayor and the Council can begin to argue the case in court.

Though Adams said Holden – who said he didn’t sign onto the Council’s lawsuit – first brought him the idea before Trump took office, the mayor officially offered an office on Rikers to the federal government in February after meeting with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.

“Today, I met with ‘border czar’ Tom Homan and local federal law enforcement officials to discuss how we can work together to remove violent migrant gangs from our city,” Adams said in a statement on Feb. 13. “We are now working on implementing an executive order that will reestablish the ability for ICE agents to operate on Rikers Island — as was the case for 20 years — but now, instead, ICE agents would specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs.”

The mayor’s meeting with Homan came a day after news broke that the Department of Justice had begun to push prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York to drop the case against Adams. Danielle Sassoon, the prosecutor leading the office in an interim capacity at the time, resigned over the request from her boss, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. In her resignation letter to Bove, Sassoon accused Adams of entering into a quid pro quo with the Justice Department, offering to help enact Trump’s immigration enforcement in New York City in exchange for the case’s dismissal.

Adams has consistently denied such a deal existed. But the accusation has stuck.

When officially dismissing Adams’ case earlier this month, federal Judge Dale E. Ho said that the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case “smack[ed] of a bargain.” The judge specifically cited Adams’ announcement regarding ICE’s presence on Rikers when accusing Adams and the federal government of entering into a quid pro quo.

The alleged deal is also at the center of the Council’s lawsuit against the mayor.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is leading the charge on the Council’s suit and who is running for mayor, described the mayor as a “subsidiary” of the Trump administration during a press conference on Thursday.

“It's clear that the mayor is holding up his end of the bargain by attempting to hand Rikers Island over to Donald Trump,” the speaker said.

The first hearing in the lawsuit will be held in Manhattan Civil Court on Friday.

Additional reporting by Ryan Schwach.