N.Y.C. Officials Give City Workers Leeway to Yield to ICE Agents

If federal immigration officers show up on New York City property, a one-page memo distributed by City Hall lawyers last month has instructions for how city employees should respond: Take their information, ask if they have a warrant and call a city lawyer to deal with the matter.

But the memo also says that workers should comply with the officers’ requests or let them in if the workers feel “threatened” or fear for their safety. And it warns that actively harboring an undocumented immigrant is a federal crime.

The wording seems to give leeway to city workers — including at migrant shelters, schools and hospitals — to allow federal immigration agents to enter city property under certain conditions, even without a warrant.

The memo reflects how New York City officials are grappling with how to balance their status as the country’s largest sanctuary city with Mayor Eric Adams’s stated desire to work with President Trump as he carries out his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

City Hall officials stressed that the memo was crafted to provide uniform guidance for employees across city agencies, and with the safety of frontline workers in mind, especially if a visit by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escalated and turned violent.

“We do not want city workers getting into physical altercations in any way with any nonlocal law enforcement officer,” Camille Joseph Varlack, a deputy mayor and the mayor’s chief of staff, said in an interview on Thursday.