Eric Adams Issues New Directive for City Employees on How to Deal with ICE After Controversial Memo

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly preparing to issue a new directive aimed at instructing city workers how to deal with potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) encounters. The move tells employees to not interfere with ICE or bash President Donald Trump in his immigration crackdown efforts.

The new directive comes after the Adams' administration sought to clarify a previous memo on the matter, which instructed municipal employees to allow ICE access to property or city records if they "reasonably feel threatened or fear for your safety or the safety of others around you."

That document caused uproar among Adams' fellow New York City Democrats, underscoring the mayor's increasingly cozy relationships with the Trump administration. Criticisms even led to a threat of legal action from the City Council, Gothamist reported.

However, the new version of the document seemingly ditches that controversial language, outlining a series of steps government workers should take if approached by "non-local law enforcement," including asking the visitors to show identification and a judicial warrant as well as calling agency attorneys.

The changes come after briefings Monday between the Adams administration, elected officials and labor leaders to address their concerns. City hall then workshopped a flow chart with updated instructions on how to deal with ICE, according to Politico.

Monday's flow chart provided a more sober account of how local statutes interact with the Fourth Amendment, Politico reports. While employees can verbally deny access to federal agents without a judicial warrant, they should not interfere with any actions of law enforcement personnel should officers decide to come in anyway.

Local "sanctuary city" laws prohibit employees from proactively inviting ICE onto private property managed by the city. Instead, federal agents must show up with a judicial warrant or invoke limited exceptions.

"This refined guidance keeps in mind both the requirements of the U.S. Constitution, it honors our status as a sanctuary city, our local laws," New York City Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant said in an interview with ABC.

But the flow chart was not the only thing to come out of the Monday meeting. In fact, the Democratic mayor reportedly also told employees to refrain from criticizing the current Trump administration on social media, signaling his strengthening loyalty to the president.

Adams nods to Trump come as the Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors Monday to drop corruption charges against the mayor, arguing in a remarkable departure from long-standing norms that the case was interfering with the mayor's ability to aid the president's crackdown on illegal immigration, The Associated Press reported.

In the two-page memo, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told prosecutors in New York that they were "directed to dismiss" the bribery charges against Adams immediately. That directive also ordered prosecutors in New York not to take "additional investigative steps" against the Democrat until after November's mayoral election, though it left open the possibility that charges could be refiled after that following a review.