Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) just issued Mayor Adams a challenge: Walk the walk on protecting New Yorkers from criminal migrants.
On Tuesday, Adams said he’s open to deporting migrants charged with crimes — pure common sense and a pivot from his old position that only migrants convicted of crimes should be booted from New York City.
“Cancel me,” Adams dared lefties, “because I’m going to protect the people of this city.”
One way he can start proving it: Embrace Holden’s call to reopen the ICE office at Rikers Island, shuttered by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014, and let local law enforcement communicate with ICE and honor its detainers for criminal migrants.
As Holden put it Wednesday, “Tough talk is good, but actions speak louder.”
And New Yorkers need action: Federal data shows that more than 58,000 migrants, including at least 1,000 gang members, who are convicted felons or face criminal charges have flooded into Gotham — and those are just the ones the feds are aware of.
Violent, thieving migrant teens are attacking people in Times Square; vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is running a thriving drug, gun and prostitution empire across the five boroughs; robberies and assaults have spiked in neighborhoods with the most migrant shelters.
The city’s refusal to cooperate with ICE is protecting these thugs who spit in the face of New Yorkers’ hospitality.
Adams has shown admirable resistance to his party’s soft-on-crime, open-borders-at-all-costs positions, but he hasn’t actually done anything yet.
Yes, his power is limited: Major changes to sanctuary policy have to go through the nutty leftists in the City Council or come down via an executive order from Gov. Hochul.
But Adams passed up the chance to have his Charter Revision Commission put sanctuary repeal on the ballot last month — an opportunity to end-run the council and go straight to the voters.
It’s time to put action behind his words.
Reopening the ICE offices at Rikers would signal that City Hall is serious about “protecting” New Yorkers and working with the incoming administration to ship criminals out.
Even better, it’d send a message to the border-crossing lawbreakers brazenly terrorizing the Big Apple: Your days in this town are numbered.
