Two days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she would seek to impose new guardrails on Mayor Eric Adams’ authority rather than use her executive power to remove him “at this time,” a few hundred New Yorkers rallied and marched on Feb. 22, demanding that she reverse her decision and give Hizzoner the boot.
The rally was organized by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy & advocacy organization representing over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York State. It kicked off in Washington Square Park before protesters marched to City Hall in Lower Manhattan.
NYIC’s President and CEO Murad Awawdeh told amNewYork Metro that there was a deep fear among immigrant communities in New York because of Trump’s mass deportation agenda and that Adams was going to continue doing Trump’s bidding instead of serving New Yorkers who elected him.
That concern stems from allegations made by former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, who, in a Feb. 12 letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, said that Adams’ attorneys offered a quid pro quo: cooperation with President Trump’s immigration crackdown in exchange for having the criminal campaign fraud indictment against him dropped. Adams’ defense team has denied this, and the mayor repeated that denial under oath during a Feb. 19 court appearance.
While Hochul explained on Feb. 20 that her decision not to remove the Mayor at this time was based on concerns that the proceedings would create more “disruption and chaos,” other New Yorkers believe she is “kicking the can down the road” — a sentiment Awawdeh agreed with.
“I think at this moment, what we’re seeing is an enormous amount of fear because of not just Donald Trump, but the number one threat to New York City right now is Eric Adams and [how] he is operating,” Awawdeh said.
That fear has manifested itself into a paralysis gripping the immigrant communities of New York, he noted.
“We’ve been hearing about kids not going to school. We’ve been hearing about people not making it to their treatment appointments at doctors’ offices, and we’ve been hearing about the impact that all this is having on small businesses,” Awawdeh shared.
Before the march to City Hall on Saturday, a slew of speakers addressed the crowd, including City Council Member Alexa Avilés (D-Brooklyn) and Democratic State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, whose district includes parts of Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. They said the city needed a mayor who serves its diverse population, not the Trump agenda.
Avilés, who chairs the City Council’s Immigration Committee, pointed out that Adams blamed the cuts on the migrant crises, which have cost NYC $5 billion in two years.
“So not only is this fact pattern demonstrating his disdain for New Yorkers, his disdain for immigrant, for immigrant New Yorkers, for newcomers that he both was trying to be benevolent with and then blame them for every ailment in New York City that created hatred in our communities,” Avilés pointed out.
Gonzalez called the hesitancy to remove Adams from office a “failure.”
“Our inability to call out that it is wrong for a felon president to compromise an indicted mayor to sell out our city, and our refusal to remove him, that’s a failure,” said Gonzalez, vowing that she was committed to challenging Hochul’s decision.
Julio Herrera, director of operations for the Black Institute and Black Leadership Action Coalition, called Adams a “liability and detriment” to New York City, and said that Hochul must prove her leadership since there was “no room for compromise” with the Trump administration.
“We have a mayor who’s cozying up to the Trump administration, smiling and grinning while the border czar is threatening to destroy our families and destroy our communities,” said Herrera, referring to Mayor Adams’ appearance alongside Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan on Fox & Friends on Feb. 14.
Addressing Hochul, Herrera said, “The people who hired you demand you to take action, grow a spine, do the job we hired you to do. The more you delay, the more this man hurts our people, hurts our communities, while ICE comes in and rips us apart.”
On Feb. 21, Federal District Court Judge Dale Ho indefinitely adjourned the Mayor’s corruption trial while appointing an independent attorney, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, to argue against the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the case against Adams.
