For years, New York City leaders have relished the status of being a so-called sanctuary city, where local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration officials is limited.
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams made it clear that his views were different. If he had his way, he said he would permit law enforcement in New York City to work openly with immigration authorities to more readily deport migrants who were suspected — not necessarily convicted — of serious crimes.
“There’s some people that feel that they should be able to remain here, keep doing their actions until they are eventually convicted,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to that theory.”
A reporter asked Mr. Adams, a first-term Democrat, about due process.
“They didn’t give due process to the person that they shot or punched or killed,” the mayor countered. “There’s just a philosophical disagreement here.”
Any changes to the city’s sanctuary laws would require the City Council’s cooperation. Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker, has made it clear there were “no plans to revisit these laws,” a spokesman said.
Mr. Adams’s remarks follow a series of crimes the police say that migrants committed in New York City that have garnered intense press coverage. They also follow the arrest of Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant in Georgia charged with killing a nursing student. Last year, Mr. Ibarra was arrested in New York City, charged with riding a scooter without a license and with riding with a minor who was not wearing a helmet, according to a high-ranking law enforcement source.
Mr. Ibarra was not prosecuted or jailed. The case records are sealed, and it was not clear if he was instead issued a summons or fined for a motor vehicle violation. It was also unclear if the sanctuary law had any impact on the handling of the case.
The Adams administration continues to grapple with a migrant crisis that has brought roughly 180,000 migrants into the five boroughs. New York City, which must provide shelter to all who need it under a legal settlement, is now sheltering roughly 65,000 migrants, many of whom are stuck in limbo while they wait for work permits.
Mr. Adams’s remarks, which he made during his weekly question-and-answer session with reporters, provoked condemnation from migrants’ rights advocates and support from some local Republican officials.
“I think he’s adopting the majority view,” said Joseph Borelli, a Republican councilman from Staten Island. “Even if you’re someone out there who believes we should be a sanctuary city, the bulk of New Yorkers think that once you’ve crossed the line and committed violent or repeated crimes, you’ve forfeited that right.”
Mr. Adams’s remarks on Tuesday also earned the support of Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican congresswoman from Staten Island.
New York City’s sanctuary city laws are designed to limit official cooperation with immigration authorities, but they do not preclude it entirely. The police are still required to turn over migrants convicted of one of a list of more than 170 serious crimes within the last five years in cases in which a judge has signed a request.
“We’re not in a country where just because someone suspects you of having thrown a bottle at a police officer, that should automatically lead to your deportation,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “That is just not rule of law.”
Mr. Adams has generally sought to soften his criticism of the migrant influx’s impact by adding that the vast majority of migrants abide by the law. But his tendency to complain about the city’s sanctuary laws has done little to endear him to public defenders or immigrant advocates.
Rolling back the law would spread “terror” among immigrants and put “countless New Yorkers in danger of being separated from their families and deported without due process,” the Legal Aid Society and several other public defender organizations said in a joint statement.
During the press availability, Mr. Adams asked his chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, to deliver a brief, prepared history of New York City’s sanctuary laws.
Ms. Zornberg complied. In 1989, she said, former Mayor Edward I. Koch signed an executive order recognizing that people’s immigration status is confidential, but saying that city employees could transmit that information to federal authorities if an individual was suspected of engaging in criminal activity.
Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg issued a similar set of executive orders that replaced Mr. Koch’s.
The city’s stance changed in 2014 and 2017, when the City Council passed laws limiting New York City from honoring federal detainer requests for immigrants suspected of criminal activity, with many exceptions for serious offenses.
The laws were designed to reassure immigrants that they could report crimes or seek other assistance without fear of being deported.
Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former Council speaker who led the effort to enact the 2014 law, accused Mr. Adams of “regurgitating” Republican talking points that are discriminatory to Latino asylum seekers.
“The scapegoating happens when you don’t have solutions and you’re always looking for the easy way out,” Ms. Mark-Viverito said.
Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.