NEW YORK — A New York City corrections investigator shared sensitive data with federal authorities about two migrants in custody, unwittingly violating sanctuary laws and helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrest one of the men, a city Department of Investigation report found Thursday.
The Department of Correction staffer, part of a joint homeland security task force, relayed information including real-time updates on the migrant after he was released from the city’s Rikers Island jail complex, the probe found.
The DOC investigator, whose name was not made public, wasn’t aware he was assisting in civil enforcement, according to the DOI probe, which cast blame on DOC’s lack of training about local laws limiting cooperation between city law enforcement and federal immigration officers. The city does work with the feds on criminal enforcement and when a judicial warrant is issued.
“DOI found that in at least two instances a DOC investigator unwittingly violated the law and DOC policy and that DOC failed to provide proper guidance and training to DOC staff about how to comply with City law and DOC’s own policy while maintaining critical law enforcement partnerships with federal agencies,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber said in a statement.
The incidents took place between November 2024, when Donald Trump was elected but Joe Biden was still president, and last February. The Trump administration has targeted New York City as the biggest sanctuary city as it cracks down on illegal immigration. Mayor Eric Adams has criticized the city’s sanctuary laws while saying he’d uphold them, but Adams, along with Trump border czar Tom Homan, also sought to return ICE to Rikers Island. That attempt was halted by a state court ruling.
Thursday’s DOI report found the DOC investigator gave information to Homeland Security Investigations agents about the two migrants’ custodial status and a screenshot of one city detainee’s detail report with his booking photo. Both migrants in city custody had been charged in pending criminal cases, but they had not been convicted of crimes that would warrant cooperation with federal authorities under the city’s sanctuary laws.
“As Mayor Adams has repeatedly stated, New York City does not — and will not — participate in civil immigration enforcement, in accordance with local law,” City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus said in a statement. “We were disappointed to learn that a Department of Correction employee — acting independently and without direction or consultation from a supervisor — unknowingly failed to follow city law and DOC policy related to immigration enforcement.”
Mamelak Altus said no one else at the DOC or in city government knew about the information sharing and that immediate action was taken on training.