Adams Hammered With Questions on How to Protect Immigrants in Age of Trump

A glum Mayor Eric Adams, for the first time in two months trotted out a full contingent of aids as he addressed the press on November 6 in the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning election victory a day earlier. He rather dourly congratulated President-elect Trump and vice president elect JD Vance and pledged to keep New York City a sanctuary city.

“No matter who is president or what party controls Congress, this city will always stand up for the rights of women, our immigrant brothers and sisters, our LGBTQ+ community and millions of others,” Adams said.

Immigration was not the only post election concern Adams addressed. He vowed the city would continue to welcome women who came from other states where abortions have been banned.

But immigration was the dominant theme.

Over 220,000 asylum seekers have flooded into New York City in the past two years and over 60,000 are now somewhere in the city’s shelter system. President-elect Trump has said ridding the country of illegal immigrants is a top priority and the theme was a driving factor in his successful election push that swept crucial swing states and gave the Republican candidate for president a majority of the popular vote for the first time in decades.

Adams is faced with the difficult task of continuing to serve as a sanctuary city while he himself faces an increasing backlash from some sectors of the city to their presence here. And now there is the Trump threat of mass deportations of immigrants to contend with.

“To those immigrants who are living here pursuing the American dream, as so many generations did before you, New York City stands with you,” Adams said.

He also touched on the other big concern circulating around a women’s right to an abortion and the near total abortion bans now in place in 24 states since the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade.

“In New York, women can be confident that their reproductive rights are secure,” he said. “Our city remains committed to protecting and advancing women’s health care, including access to abortion care. No matter what happens across the country, abortion care will always be available in New York City for anyone who needs it. That includes women outside of this city who come here seeking the care they are denied in other places.”

His deputy commissioner of health and human services Anne Williams-Isom praised New Yorker for giving Proposition 1 a thumbs up at the ballot on Nov. 5. “With the passage of Proposition 1, we are grateful New Yorkers have reaffirmed the statewide right to reproductive freedom among our civil liberties,” she said.

But when Adams ended the prepared remarks and asked if anyone wanted to address the gaggle of aids who had joined him at the presser and were about to be dismissed, the first one was a zinger aimed at Adam’s Immigration Commissioner Manuel Castro.

Castro is among the 1.7 million immigrants who came here as children and have been allowed to remain under the Dream Act first enacted by President Obama and extended in 2023 by President Biden.

One reporter pointedly asked Castro: “Are you worried that Dreamers, such as yourself, could be deported?”

“We want to be clear that, as a sanctuary city, we intend to follow the law,” Castro said. “We expect that all our city agencies follow our sanctuary laws. Sanctuary laws make it clear, with respect to how we collaborate or if we collaborate with federal government, that it sets the boundaries. It explains how we use our resources.

“And I want to make sure that our immigrant communities know that, as the mayor has said, we will continue to be a sanctuary city, and we will continue to protect our immigrant communities.

Deputy commissioner Isom, speaking in Spanish said, “I want to assure our immigrant communities that we will be working together, the entire administration, to ensure that they have the correct information, that they are not victims of hate, and that they know that this will continue to be a sanctuary city and that we will be protecting their information and will not be following the instructions of the federal government in cases of mass deportations.”

Adams was repeatedly pressed for more information on what exactly the city was doing to protect against against mass deportations immigrants that Trump said he will begin on day on.

“He’s saying he might use the U.S. military. Is this administration going to participate in those mass deportations in any way?” one reporter asked.

Commissioner Castro stepped up to answer the question but was woefully short on any specifics.

“So I know that these are questions that have come up and I want to make sure that we’re taking a step back and not adding to the fear and anxiety that immigrant communities are already facing. We need to really take stock of what is actually happening now, which is increased misinformation online, panic and fear setting in because of what people have heard.”

Adams was asked at another point if there was common ground at all between the city and incoming Trump administration on the need for federal money to address the immigrant crisis locally.

Adams has said that migrant crisis has cost the city $7 billion so far and was a big reason for last year’s budget cuts.

He returned to a familiar theme that he hammered home numerous times during the Biden Administration which largely fell on deaf ears. “I want to see the federal government fix a federal problem,” Adams said. “This is a federal problem. I cannot say that enough, and I think a lot of people don’t fully appreciate what impact this has had on the city because they weren’t up every night... I want the problem solved. A national problem should be solved by a national government.”