Quantcast

Speaker Adams accuses mayor of having ‘no plan’ to counter right-wing Trump government

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams speaks about Trump
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Credit: Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on Thursday charged that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration had “no plan” to oppose newly minted President Donald Trump’s far-right agenda.

As soon as Trump took the oath of office on Monday, he signed a barrage of executive orders aimed at ending birthright citizenship, closing the US’s southern border with Mexico, and dismantling government diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 

Yet, especially in regard to immigration, Mayor Adams has so far not detailed how the city plans to respond to Trump’s pledge to execute mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

During an unrelated Thursday news conference, Speaker Adams accused City Hall of not preparing for the Trump administration taking office this week or laying out a plan to counter its agenda, which most local Democrats see as antithetical to the city’s values.

“Several other cities prepared for [the Trump] administration and things that were preemptively going to happen,” she said. “New York City’s administration had no plan like so many other cities had to prepare for the situation.”

Donald Trump
As soon as President Trump took the oath of office on Monday, he signed a barrage of executive orders aimed at ending birthright citizenship, closing the US’s southern border with Mexico, and dismantling government diversity, equity and inclusion programs. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

‘Scenario planning’

Mayoral press secretary Kayla Mamelak Altus countered that the administration has been “scenario planning” for months to prepare for the Trump administration.

“At a time when anxiety is incredibly heightened and misinformation is being spread, it’s puzzling why anyone would give New Yorkers anything but the facts,” she said. “Just last week, City Hall gathered several high-raking members of our administration for a private meeting with the speaker and other councilmembers, where we discussed, in detail, the months of scenario planning we had prepared in response to new procedures at the federal level.”

“This scenario planning included trainings, data protection, communication to external parties, federal advocacy, and looking at opportunities for partnership,” Altus added. “As the mayor has repeatedly said, he plans to work with the new administration, not war with them, but it is unfortunate that some are choosing a different course.”

The speaker said the City Council has stepped up to fill the perceived void. 

“It’s really been, in my humble opinion, the work of the council, us working with advocates and our constituents, that has gotten information out there,” the speaker said.

She said she would like to see the mayoral administration join a lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general opposing Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship — which grants citizenship to any child born in the US regardless of their parents’ immigration status. The right is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The speaker said she also wants city agencies to clearly communicate to undocumented New Yorkers what protections they are entitled to under local law.

While New York is a sanctuary city, meaning city law enforcement is barred from collaborating with federal immigration authorities in many cases, the mayor has not clearly outlined how the city will protect undocumented migrants from deportation.

When Adams was asked during a Tuesday press conference what specific plans the city has developed to shield newcomers, he punted and said the federal government determines immigration policy.

“It comes to one thing: the federal government is responsible for immigration policies,” Adams said on Jan. 21. “Our training is to make sure that they know, that our agencies know that. … It’s scenario and role-playing. We have instructed our agencies.”

Adams has said that while he intends to uphold the city’s sanctuary laws, he believes migrants who “commit” violent crimes should be booted from the city and the country altogether. However, he has never made it clear if that means those who are convicted of a violent crime, among a list of 170 that are not covered by the city’s sanctuary laws, or any migrant charged with a violent offense.

Adams has also repeatedly said he wants to be “working, not warring” with the Trump administration. He attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington DC on Monday and met with the president privately in Palm Beach last Friday.

The mayor’s increasingly friendly stance toward Trump has fueled widespread chatter that he is angling for the president to pardon him if he gets convicted in his federal corruption case.

However, the speaker said that while she hopes Adams’ new relationship with Trump will benefit the city, she doubts it will.

“I hope those visits really were for the benefit of New York; we’ll see,” the speaker said. “It’s hard to recognize how some of these [visits] of late could possibly benefit the citizens of New York. But again my hope is that overall, New Yorkers will feel the benefit of that relationship.”