City News | Politics
New York representatives and residents rally against Mayor Adams allowing ICE into schools and hospitals
The event featured speeches from lawyers, healthcare workers, and several elected officials, including District 7 City Council member Shaun Abreu, CC ’14.
By Anamika Changrani-Rastogi / Columbia Daily SpectatorSpeakers criticized Adams for cooperating with Trump to get his corruption charges removed.By Anamika Changrani-Rastogi • February 17, 2025 at 2:51 AM
By Anamika Changrani-Rastogi • February 17, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Several elected officials, alongside New York City coalitions and organizations, held a press conference on Feb. 9 to oppose Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter schools and hospitals. The directive has since been rescinded.
District 7 City Council member Shaun Abreu, CC ’14, spoke at the event, which was held at Tweed Courthouse. The Working Families Party of New York, Make the Road Action, and New York Immigration Coalition were also among the organizations present at the press conference.
Several speakers criticized new guidance released by City Hall in January, which spelled out an exception to New York City’s long-standing “sanctuary city” laws. The protections prevent city workers from allowing ICE into city buildings.
The updated guidance, however, allowed city workers to let ICE into buildings if officials “feel threatened or fear for [their] safety or the safety of others around [them].” This guidance was rescinded by the Adams administration two days after the press conference.
Several speakers said that Mayor Adams’ cooperation with President Donald Trump’s immigration policy is a way to “save himself”—referring to Adams’ corruption charges, which the Department of Justice directed prosecutors to drop on Feb. 11.
“The first rule of tyranny is do not obey in advance,” District 22 City Council member Tiffany Cabán said. “And Eric Adams is not just obeying tyranny. He’s rolling over to sell out our most vulnerable community to save himself.”
District 37 City Council member Sandy Nurse echoed Cabán’s sentiments, stating that Adams was “compromised because of his corruption and his incompetence.”
“He is spending all of his time trying to save his own ass while our neighbors are afraid to go to school, are afraid to go to work, or to the hospital, or to seek help,” Nurse said.
Speakers commented on the impact that ICE sweeps have had on the New York City community.
“It is clear that our mayor only cares about self-preservation, and so I have to remind him that history does not look favorably upon people who capitulate to tyrants,” District 87 Assembly member Karines Reyes said. “They are profiling every single person who they perceive to be undocumented, and frankly, I fit that description. Many of us fit that description, and we cannot stand for it.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said that Adams is acting as an “assistant to Donald Trump, not a mayor in New York City,” and that his actions are contributing to a fearful environment in the city.
“This is about creating fear, terror, criminalizing people for simply existing,” Williams said.
Fears of ICE raids have led to decreased attendance at schools across the city. District 5 schools experienced dramatic decreases in attendance following Trump’s executive order to allow ICE into schools.
“Our own school chancellor is telling us that there is up to 5 percent of our students who are not coming to school any longer,” District 36 Assembly member Zohran Mamdani said. “We know in individual schools that’s up to 20 percent absent.”
Mamdani is currently running for mayor in the Democratic primary.
Several elected officials discussed their plans to increase protections for asylum seekers in the absence of support from the mayor’s office. District 37 Assembly member Claire Valdez discussed the New York for All Act, which would expand sanctuary protections across New York state, while City Council members—including Abreu—announced they would uphold New York City’s sanctuary laws.
“This is our moment in time to stand up to dictators. We have the opportunity and the power to stand with immigrant New Yorkers every day. It is our moral responsibility to do it,” Abreu said.
Daniel Coates, an organizer for Make the Road Action, expressed enthusiasm at the involvement of community members in the rally and the turnout at the event.
“I think the number of community members and elected officials is illustrative of the kind of consensus that exists in the city,” Coates said. “I think we sent a pretty clear message about the need to keep ICE out of our city buildings, to maintain the spirit and the letter of the sanctuary laws that we have passed.”
New York City is home to approximately 3.1 million immigrants who make up about 38 percent of the city’s population as of 2023. According to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, 13 percent of foreign-born New York residents are undocumented immigrants.
“There’s already been indication that ICE has already been in places like Washington Heights,” Abreu said in an interview with Spectator. “They’re gonna keep making their way down, right? They’re gonna keep making their ways into our neighborhoods. And we have a strong immigrant community in West Harlem and in Washington Heights and throughout our city, and we need to do everything that we can to protect them.”
Staff Writer Anamika Changrani-Rastogi can be contacted at anamika.changrani-rastogi@columbiaspectator.com. Follow her on X @anamikacr.
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