The Law Department gave city government agencies a detailed briefing Tuesday on New York’s sanctuary status laws, a move aimed at ensuring compliance with the protections in anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump’s planned immigration crackdown, according to multiple sources directly familiar with the matter.
General counsels for nearly all city agencies, including the NYPD, were invited to the private virtual briefing, said the sources, who spoke with the Daily News on condition of anonymity.
The purpose of the briefing was for the Law Department to give the counsels a broad overview of the existing sanctuary status laws — which prohibit city agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in most scenarios — with the understanding that they would then train staff on best practices, according to the sources.
The briefing comes less than two weeks before the second presidential inauguration of Trump, who has vowed to launch “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants upon taking office, regardless of whether they’ve done anything illegal besides residing in the U.S. without status.
It also comes as Mayor Adams, a conservative Democrat, has stated publicly he’s looking at whether he can use executive power to roll back some of the immigrant protections included in the sanctuary laws.
Adams has argued beefed-up protections enacted by the City Council under ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration went too far in barring the Police and Correction Departments from holding immigrant inmates on behalf of federal authorities seeking to deport them, unless they have a judicial warrant and the person in question committed a violent or serious crime.
Adams says he believes the city should be able to turn over undocumented immigrants to the feds if they’ve been charged with serious or violent crimes, not just convicted.
Adams spokeswoman Liz Garcia wouldn’t say whether the mayor’s proposals to revise sanctuary protections were discussed in Tuesday’s briefing, only telling The News that the Law Department “provides privileged briefings to agency general counsels on a regular basis.”
There are some 500,000 undocumented immigrants living and working in New York City. That’s in addition to the tens of thousands of mostly Latin American migrants who have arrived in the city since spring 2022 as part of a large influx from the U.S. southern border.
Last month, Adams met at Gracie Mansion with Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming “border czar” who’s expected to take the lead on his “mass deportation” effort.
After their sitdown, Adams told reporters he shares the “same goal” as Homan and said the city had made “terrible mistakes” in the past by limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“This can’t be a safe haven for violent individuals. You have a privilege to live in this country, and those who want to commit acts of violence, they are violating that privilege,” Adams said. “[Homan’s] desire is clearly, again, what my target area is.”
