NEW YORK, Feb 19, CMC – Caribbean and other immigrant advocates in New York have urged the city workforce not to collude with agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“Today, New Yorkers find ourselves at another crossroads. Four of our city’s deputy mayors resigned because of how compromised the mayor is, in light of his recent actions in collusion with the Trump administration,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella immigrant advocacy organization representing over 200 immigrant groups in New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Tuesday. “At a time when New Yorkers cannot rely on their mayor to follow the law, others in the Adams administration must step up.
“Mayor Adams may view his own participation in Trump’s mass deportation agenda as a get out of jail free card, but the actions he will be directing his subordinates to take to collude with ICE are both legally dubious and morally corrupt,” Awawdeh added. “We are calling on all remaining deputy mayors, city agency commissioners and city workers within the Adams administration to not comply with any orders to collaborate with ICE from this mayor, who remains compromised in his ability to put the needs and the safety of New Yorkers ahead of his own.
“Despite what feels like a never-ending bad movie at City Hall, New York City’s workforce has continued to deliver for everyone who calls this city home,” he continued. “We commend you for your work in keeping the government running through a time when there is no effective leadership from the mayor.”
With the resignation of four top New York City officials over Adams’s collusion with Trump on his mass deportation agenda, New York Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has demanded that the mayor “step aside and resign.”
“With the resignation of deputy mayors, it has become clear that Mayor Adams has now lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government and New Yorkers,” said Council Speaker Adams, no relations with the mayor, in a statement on Monday. “He now must prioritize New York City and New Yorkers, step aside and resign.
“This administration no longer has the ability to effectively govern with Eric Adams as mayor,” she added. “These resignations are the culmination of the mayor’s actions and decisions that have led to months of instability and now compromise the City’s sovereignty, threaten chaos, and risk harm to our families.
“There is too much at stake for our city and New Yorkers to allow this to continue,” Speaker Adams continued. “We have endured enough scandal, selfishness and embarrassment, all of which distract from the leadership that New Yorkers deserve. This is the opposite of public service.
“Our city needs a leader totally committed to protecting New Yorkers and improving their lives,” she said.
As the US Department of Justice (DOJ) moves to dismiss federal prosecutors’ corruption case against Mayor Adams, as a result of his collaboration with Trump’s mass deportation plans, the four top New York City officials said on Monday that they cannot continue to serve in the Eric Adams administration.
CMC/nk/kb/2025
