Mayor Eric Adams: Good morning, everyone. I know everybody talks about [how] we're moving into autumn, but like I love to say, 'The leaves are not the only thing that's falling.' When you look at what we're doing in our administration, we brought down the cost of childcare a month from $220 a month to less than $20 a month, cut taxes for working-class people, zero taxes for low-income New Yorkers, and lowering unemployment in the city, not only citywide, but in the Black and brown community by 20 percent. And that is why we're declaring this season Affordable Autumn Season as we look at how we're looking at one of the most important issues, and that's housing.
All season long, we are rolling out new initiatives to save New Yorkers money and create a more affordable city for all. That includes building the housing New Yorkers need. And there's no other way to say it, this administration has been the most pro-housing administration in the history of this city.
Really hats off to Deputy Mayor Carrión and what his team is doing over at HPD. He has broken records after records after records when it comes down to housing, and his team is pushing these projects through in a very creative way and a consistent way. Year one, year two, year three, each year we broke records from using the FHEPS voucher program to building and preserving housing. Just job well done, job well done, DM.
And we were clear, we invested record amounts of money into new housing and created a record number of new homes. We connected a record number of New Yorkers to affordable housing and passed the most pro-housing zoning proposal in our city's history. And we had great partners. You know, when I sit down and think about how many times Shams DaBaron has stood with us and just really pushed this initiative through, just giving us a ground level view on what was needed to move forward with housing, particularly those around formerly homeless.
Thirty-five hundred formerly homeless individuals removed off our streets, 1,000 from the subway system, 2,500 from the streets, and two, permanent housing. Permanent housing, just good stuff. But our [inaudible], they do not stop just there. To solve the housing crisis, we knew we had to think creatively in how to use every piece of land and every tool within our reach. And that meant passing historic rezoning efforts to unlock tens of thousands of new homes across the city, and it meant issuing our historic Executive Order 43 last year.
This Executive Order was crucial. We saw throughout our city the calls for more housing, but we saw city-owned land that sat vacant. Year after year after year, no one was doing anything with it, and it was just a bad combination of vacant spaces and no creativity to build it, and we zeroed in on it. This executive order directed every city agency to review all of their properties and find places where we could build new housing.
And this was a win, because you can't have a housing crisis when the city government is holding onto land, just holding onto vacant land. And now that it has been a little over a year, we're ready to report the results. Thanks to this executive order, our City Housing Activation Task Force, codenamed CHAT, to find places to build new housing. We have already advanced nearly 10,000 homes across 11 different city-owned sites.
In Queens, we're turning the abandoned Flushing Airport into 3,000 new homes and 60 acres of open space. This place sat dormant since 1984. Think about that. I was a rookie cop back then. In Manhattan, just steps from City Hall, we're tearing down a deteriorating city office building and turning it into over 1,000 new homes. And in the Bronx, we're building a new library at the Grand Concourse and adding in more homes alongside it.
And we're just getting started, because today we're adding two more projects to that list. Right here at 390 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn, we're turning one of Williamsburg's last underutilized waterfront sites into 900 new homes. We will rebuild the Department of Transportation facility here to give these workers a brand new facility and add hundreds of new homes to the property.
And in East Harlem, at 1880 First Avenue, we're turning a city-owned parking lot next to a public hospital into 800 new homes. So instead of parking cars, we're going to park families so they can enjoy a home where they can call their own.
And you want to know the best part of all of this? At both of these new city-owned sites, at least a quarter of these homes will be affordable. When you put all of our work together, the homes we've created, preserved, and planned, we're talking about almost close to 427,000 homes we will be building in the process.
This is just good work, and when you think about it for a moment, these numbers are so important because they're not just vacant spaces, they're places where families will grow, where communities will thrive, and we will start turning around this major housing crisis that we are facing.
So I said before, and I'm going to say it again, we're the most pro-housing administration in the history of this city, not by our opinion, but by the numbers. Just reading the report today, when you add that to what we've done around employment, we're outpacing the entire country in employment. No one is keeping up with New York. People said New York was dead, well, you know what, look in that grave because we're not in it. We are alive and well, and we're going to continue to see this city turn around in the right direction.
We've broken records, we've recovered from COVID, we've recovered from the migrants and asylum seekers [crisis], we've recovered from the public safety crisis we were facing. New York is not coming back, folks. New York is back, and I want to bring on our Deputy Mayor Carrión to take on.
Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión, Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce: Thank you, mayor. Good morning, everybody. There's not much more that I can add to what the mayor has offered this morning. I will say a couple of things unprepared. You know, we all get prepared remarks, right? And then some of us like to wing it more than others. I like to have a little fun with you all.
But two things, one, this is a full circle moment for me. You've heard me talk about my parents coming from Puerto Rico in the 1950s. Well, guess what, they were living on South Second Street in 1961 when I was born. And so, I always remind the mayor that I'm also a Brooklyn boy. And it is a full circle moment in so many ways.
The other thing I'd like to share is sort of kept it obvious, right? Facts and figures are stubborn things, right? You know, the mayor, we all have the responsibility of going out and communicating about this. And you all in the media and the press will write about it or put it up on television or on the radio waves or online. The story is so clear about what happened in New York City.
If you think pre-COVID and you think of the arrival of Eric Adams as mayor and this administration and the fear and trepidation that existed and prevailed in our city at the moment, we were all kind of scared and worried. Our office buildings were half empty or worse. People were going and working remotely and finding new places in suburbs, exurbs and other places around the country with the assumption that there was no guarantee for the future. And then something magical happened. New York, as usual, came back.
There was the energy, the vitality, the attraction of this great city. Generation after generation, people keep coming back because they believe in New York City. And this mayor took the reins, the bull by the horn, and said, we've got to do some very important things. We've got to build housing for working families, for people who want to live in the city, for the people who already live in the city who might make the choice of leaving, or if they want to own a home, may want to leave to go somewhere else. We have to catch those people and continue to build our economy. And that's exactly what we did.
Today we're still facing a housing crisis. That's not breaking news. 1.4 percent vacancy rate. That's not breaking news. What is breaking news is bold action that says, create a citywide housing, what's it called again? Activation task force. I like how the mayor says, code name, CHAT. City Housing Activation Task Force. But what was the charge? The charge was, hey, we're a landlord here. We're a player in the real estate market. One of the strongest real estate markets on the globe. Let's leverage our position. We have 13,000, more than 13,000 properties where we might be able to build homes.
So the mayor gave us that charge. And I am so glad to be able to be standing on the Williamsburg waterfront in my old hood when I was zero years old to announce this opportunity for future generations. That people like us who keep coming to this great global city will have an opportunity to raise their families in a vibrant city. So we're excited about this.
And we're excited about entering into a partnership with what I refer to as the host community. And we're excited about that because there will be open space. There will be housing. And there will be other assets. And I was telling someone earlier how if you were here 20, 25 years ago, mayor, it was a little bit different. This is an amazing transformation of this neighborhood. And this is really a capstone here and in East Harlem of what we can continue to do to build a great city where it's the best place to raise a family.
Congratulations to all the people involved in this. And my team from City Hall, Matt and Nate and all the good folks working every day, day in and day out, and the HPD commissioner and all these wonderful people. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Well said. Well said. You know, and I think about January 1st, 2022, we sat in City Hall and there was this level of uncertainty. And it just took real bold leadership of all of our agency heads, our deputy mayors, and just said, we're going to forge ahead a real future for this city. And the city can't go backwards. We have to continue to move forward.
But we could not have done it without real partners who were not being heard throughout the years. And I cannot thank Shams DaBaron enough, who has been a real partner and an advocate for those who were homeless, or those who are living in homelessness. And so I want to bring on a real partner, Shams DaBaron.
Shams DaBaron: Okay, I'm not going to go off script. Good morning, everyone. In this city, everybody says they're pro-housing. That's a new trend. Everybody is suddenly committed to affordable housing. Yet some who preach affordable housing on Monday, come Tuesday, they're blocking it. That ain't pro-housing. Let me tell you what pro-housing is.
Pro-housing is when Mayor Adams looks at a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, the lowest since 1968, and understands we're in a crisis. He doesn't wait for committees or consensus. He signs Executive Order 43 to evaluate every single piece of city property, city-owned land, and see its viability for housing. Every parking lot, every underutilized site.
He says, if there's any land within the city – I'm not going to try to mimic you. He says, if there's any land within the city's control that has even the remotest potential to develop affordable housing, our administration will take action.
And here's what that bold leadership delivers. Ten thousand homes. Ten thousand homes advanced on city-owned sites in just one year since that executive order. This is the most pro-housing administration in this city, in the city's history. And this announcement shows why. Every single agency, every level of government, working together.
We're here in Williamsburg today. And across the river in East Harlem, a parking lot, think about it, a parking lot next to a public hospital will become housing. Because housing and healthcare go hand in hand. The numbers don't lie. Executive Order 43 equals 10,000 homes and counting.
I urge New Yorkers to be on point. I know it's election time, and you're going to hear it all. But don't be fooled, don't be misled, don't be hoodwinked, and don't let nobody bamboozle you. You got Black and brown leadership dominating the ranks of this administration. People of color who come from where we come from, who understand our challenges because they lived it. They understand the disparities in this housing crisis.
That 56 percent of shelter residents are Black, 32 percent are Latino. They know Black and Latino families need to double their income and more, especially amongst the Latino population, just to afford medium rent. While previous administrations made progress, this one is accelerating it. Record-breaking housing production, record support for formerly homeless New Yorkers. Because when leadership understands the problem from lived experience, they attack it differently.
When you got leadership that looks like the people that's most hurt by this crisis, you don't get management, you get movement. They know what it's like to be homeless, to be housing insecure. Am I right or wrong? They know what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck, am I right or am I wrong? They know the struggle that everyday New Yorkers face, because most of them have the same lived experience.
That's why this administration never looked down on me, a formerly homeless guy who slept in the streets, on subways, park benches, and in city shelters. They never looked at me as anything other than a partner, why? Because they are me. They are us. They understand that lived experience isn't a liability, it's an asset. It's wisdom you can't get from a textbook.
This lived experience has taken me from a park bench in Harlem to my seat on the city's Charter Revision Commission, serving as Commissioner Shams, I like that name. When the people solving the problem are the people who live the problem, you get real solutions. Not management, movement. And as we move forward, we know that there's more work to be done. This fight ain't over until every New Yorker has a safe, affordable home.
With this announcement today, you can judge the tree by the fruit it bears. The tree is bearing fruit, 10,000 homes worth of fruit. So thank you, Mayor Adams, for your bold leadership. Thank you to the team. Thank you to Deputy Mayor Adolfo, Commissioner Ahmed, and the HPD team. To all the agency partners, my fellow housing advocates, and every New Yorker that's committed to fighting for affordable housing. This is what happens when we all come together with one understanding. Housing is a human right. The numbers don't lie. Executive Order 43 equals 10,000 homes and counting. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: If I ask it on topic, will I ask in off topic?
Mayor Adams: You can ask it on and off, how about that.
Question: When the housing is developed here, I know there had previously been issues. We are on the waterfront. I know there were some issues with the parking lot. I think there was some sort of, not sinking necessarily, but given that this is a waterfront site, do you want to lay out some of the plans? I know maybe HPD would have a better idea of how you build on the waterfront that's prone to flooding.
Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Yes, of course. I think there's two parts of it. First, whenever you're looking at a site, you're doing a geotechnical analysis, you're doing survey work, you're looking at the parcel as is, looking at what the ground underneath will give you, whether it's strong bedrock or something that's more shifty. There are a number of construction techniques. Fill, you can extend the shoreline, you can brace it. There's a lot that's already been done.
New York City has a long history of building on its waterfront. We have both our luxury and our most deeply affordable housing on the waterfront. As part of the course of doing construction, there's a lot of work that we already have established through precedent. Plus, they will engage extensively, not only with engineers, but with professionals at the Department of Buildings.
Also, the city staff who has owned and operated property along the waterfront has had experience having to repair, rebuild, and make safe. That experience, plus the precedent of building on the waterfront, plus the existing tools that we have in construction tech could be applied to make sure that when we're building out, anything that comes next will be safe.
Additionally, when you're building, especially now that we know so much more about protecting the water edge and protecting the buildings we have on the waterfront, certain resiliency methods will be applied to keep things like water erosion or seepage that undermines the buildings on the waterfront from happening again. I think that there is definitely a lot of practice.
Especially, not mentioned enough, but a huge part of the work around CHAT is the Economic Development Corporation. If you think about the work that they've done in lower Manhattan, on the east side, in Queens, the raised shorelines work, they have extensive experience as a city agency in thinking about how we better protect and build on the waterfront. I'm sure all those lessons would be applied to anything that happens here.
Mayor Adams: Okay, guys. Thank you. Thank you all. Let me grab a few of these off-topic. You know, they've been salivating to get at me for a few days.
Question: I want to talk to you about a tragedy that happened in Queens where a 13-year-old kid was shot in the head on the way home from school in Cambria Heights. The mother is heartbroken, obviously, but is seeking justice and wants the city to find the person who killed her son. I wonder if you could talk about what you would say to this mother, where we are in terms of finding the person who shot the child. Also, about the surge in violence that has led to a lot of shootings in neighborhoods.
Mayor Adams: Yes, we, first of all, you know, the commissioner yesterday briefed me on the shooting and we believe there's some gang involvement. And over 50 percent of the shootings in our city, they have some form of gang connection. And that is why when you're hearing people talk about dismantling gang databases, these are the results. When you're hearing about the Raise the Age, these are the results.
Oftentimes, there's a disconnect of failed policies and how it impacts on public safety. And I've been talking about it for three years and eight, nine months now. These are real stories. And after the shootings happened, you know, those who advocate for these lax laws, they disappear. I have to communicate with these families. I have to visit them in the hospital. I have to attend the funerals. I am seeing the results of this.
And I think we need to start holding those lawmakers who are making these lax laws accountable. And we should ask them, did you call the parents? Did you go to the funeral? Were you in a hospital? They're just not there. I don't see them there. And so we will find a person responsible. We're going to ensure that they're brought to justice. But if we don't have our real partners in the criminal justice system, it is really challenging to keep these people inside.
So we will find a person responsible. This is a tragic shooting. It appears as though there's a gang involvement in it. And this is why we removed, you know, close to 24,000 illegal guns off our street.
Question: The Democratic nominee for mayor is against the gang database. Is there something you would like to say to him about the fact that it shouldn't be eliminated, but also you can relate it to this tragic shooting of the 13-year-old as an example of why the gang database should be removed?
Mayor Adams: Well, it's clear that his lack of fully understanding the full scope of public safety, if he were to become the mayor, it's just going to impact the quality of life of our city. And many people are just not fully understanding the power of the mayor and public safety.
When you talk about decriminalizing prostitution, the work we've done to help young girls and boys who were on our street corners, selling their bodies and being abused through sex trafficking. We've connected them to services. We've got many off the street to go back to that is horrific. The work we've done to make sure that our teams like our gun units were out there gathering guns off the streets. When you start disbanding those units, it's going to put more guns on the streets. More innocent people, bystanders will be the victims of these shootings.
And then you talk about defunding police departments when you lose the morale in the police. These police officers have done an amazing job to the number of arrests, the number of managing crisis situations. And so I think that all candidates should think loud and clear about how policies impact people on the ground.
This mother is grieving. And I've witnessed this too often. You know, I spoke to the mother of a 16 year old girl who was shot in the Bronx, an innocent bystander. The son of a grandmother who was shot in Harlem. You know, our city is the safest big city in America. But when you have these tragic shootings, it hits at the core of your feeling of safety. The perception hurts you. So every mother, I'm sure, is worried right now about their child and their child moving around the city.
And we just need to be clear. Public safety is the foundation of everything we're doing. The reason we are successful in the city and people are having other conversations is because we made them safer. And if you do anything to take away that, disband the units that carry out these jobs, it's your lack of understanding safety. And trust me, if one of these candidates were to win to be mayor, I am going to– I would hate to say it. I would say to New Yorkers, I told you so. I told you so.
Some of these things are reckless and they're dangerous to New Yorkers. And as we stand here in a housing crisis, you know, someone stopped me in NYCHA the other day, deputy mayor. And they said, you know, the Mayor Zohran is going to freeze my rent. Boy, when folks wake up and realize you can't freeze rent in NYCHA. It's based on your income. You can't freeze rent in Mitchell-Lama. You can't freeze rent in market rate housing. You can't freeze rent. The rent you can freeze is the apartment he has. This is almost comical.
Question: Good morning, sir. When do you think your campaign is going to catch fire? And what do you think it's going to take?
Mayor Adams: Well, I don't want it to catch fire so that it burns up. Listen, when people do an analysis over what has happened during this campaign season. Those of you who cover me, you've heard me say over and over again, this is going to be one of the most exciting campaigns in the history of the city. I've said it over and over again. It takes a lot of strategy. This is three dimensional chess because the pieces are moving so rapidly.
And people were clear in 2021 and they're clear now. You can't beat Eric at the polls. No one campaigns like me. No one knows how to put the strategy together. So wiser people say, "Well, we have to figure out how do you beat Eric?" You can't run a campaign without money. I mean, that's just the bottom line.
Last race, I spent almost eight million dollars. They were independent campaign expenditures that were spent because people really understood my message of public safety. This campaign, going into the race, I lost four million dollars. We're in court right now fighting with the Campaign Finance Board to get our four million dollars, four million dollars, 50 percent of what we can spend.
And then for the last seven weeks, I think we're going into the eight weeks now. Each week, people said "Eric is leaving tomorrow. Eric is going to Saudi Arabia. Eric is going to HUD. Eric is going to meet Donald Trump at the game. Eric is this. Eric is that." For eight weeks. When I go to my funders, they say, Eric, we thought you were in Saudi Arabia. My campaign has been decimated. So my ability to raise money, my ability to get the money that I raised already.
People cut my legs off and stated that, you know, the money you could use to communicate with your voters, because the purpose of the money is not to keep it in your pocket. It's allowed me to do mailings. It's allowed me to pay for door knockers. It's allowed me to make sure I go out and hand out flyers, pay for staff, all of that. And so we have been just undermined with a very coordinated effort. Let's shut off his oxygen, the money, and then he won't be able to breathe.
So the reason we can't catch fire the way we want to, is because in order to catch fire, you need oxygen. And my oxygen has been shut off. So my team has been sitting down the last few weeks and saying, how do we strategize? Let's win this court case. Let's continue to hammer the pavement to get the dollars we need to communicate what we want to communicate. And that's what we're doing. We're playing a strategy of this. And we're going to continue to forge ahead.
Question: Mr. Mayor, yesterday, Curtis Sliwa said that he was continually approached by the formal campaign and members of corporate likes offering money to drop out. He said that you were offering money to drop out as well. And he said he bets any minute that you'll drop out. What is your response to that?
Mayor Adams: Was he saying that three months ago? You know, three months ago. Listen, the only fact about Curtis Sliwa is that Curtis Sliwa is a liar. That's the only fact. Any other fact of a red beret, cape wearing, a hundred cats in a studio. Come on, Curtis Sliwa. It's almost laughable. Whenever we quote anything from Curtis Sliwa, he doesn't take the city seriously. I could only, if he were to be mayor, I could only imagine what Gracie Mansion will look like with all of those litter boxes all over the place and him running around with his matching red beret in each room in each color. Come on.
Question: You didn't offer him money?
Mayor Adams: No, no, no one has offered me money to leave the race. And we would not accept it if it was offered. That's not how you run politics in the city. Whoever has the best ideas to communicate with voters, who voters will decide. And, you know, voters right now– there's a combination of things, particularly in New York, that I believe have voters on edge.
The place is darn high. It's expensive. And when you give those false promises, you know, they all come up. "I'm a reduced price of bread. I'm going to freeze your rent." All of these things that you can't do. That's unfair because Zohran is smart. And if he was unknowledgeable about the powers of the mayor, then you can say, well, he's just unknowledgeable.
But when you are smart and you understand the powers of the mayor and you're going out and having NYHCA residents feel as though you're going you're going to freeze their rent. And Mitchell-Lama residents feeling that way and market rate people feeling that way. Then you're no longer doing it on the point of ignorance? You're doing it on a point of being diabolical. And that's hurtful.
When you wake up January 1, 2026, and you realize that, hey, your rent is not being frozen. Now, what do you do? He did not bring down the cost of bread. He did not, you know, make sure that your grocery bills are lower. Mayors don't have that power to do that. And to falsely tell people that, I think about my mom raising a six of six of us given these false promises that they cannot deliver on.
I didn't give false promises. I said we're going to save $30 billion for working class people. We're going to pay for your medical debt. We're doing that. We're going to lower the cost of child care. We're doing that. We're going to pay the college tuition of foster care children. We're doing that. We're going to make sure we have pre-K in place. We're doing that. We're going to make sure we have universal after school program. We're doing that. We're going to pay NYCHA residents and other low income New Yorkers' internet bill, high speed broadband bill, hundred and fifty nine dollars a month. They're saving. We're doing that. What I promise, I deliver. He's promising things he can't deliver. It's not because he doesn't know that.
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Adams: No, no, no. Go ahead. Give him some more. Because I'm on a roll. I'm on a roll.
Question: I haven't gotten a single question. I wanted to ask you, today the City Council is planning to pass the Just Home project. You were initially for it. You've constantly talked about if you try to bring single Black men into communities, people are always against them. Why are you now pulling your support for that critical project?
Mayor Adams: Okay, first two things. Number one, I'm happy you're acknowledging that I always point out that point. And so, we are not– Black men will still be housed in that location and we're getting more housing and we're going to continue to build housing in that area of the Bronx. The Bronx has been oversaturated with these alternative sorts of housing. You know, people with drug abuse, people with mental health. The Bronx has done their share. So we're not moving away from that housing of Black men.
What we were able to work out with the council person who's there is that she was saying, hey, can we not do just those who are leaving Rikers Island? We were unfair to her. Those who gave her the proposal before they said this will only be those who are dealing with chronic conditions that they're going to be housed there.
Then there was sort of a bait and switch. And that's not fair. If I promise you something, I'm going to live up to it. So, that would still be a shelter. It just won't be people leaving Rikers going right into their community. And we were able to come up with a better deal for us. And we are making sure that the project goes forward.
Now, what the City Council is doing is just grandstanding. They can't– their recommendation is not going to impact what we do with that project. So it's just grandstanding and it's not of substance. Now, what is of substance is what Adrienne Adams did, trying to usurp power in the middle of the night by passing legislation that empowers her with more power. All these people run around here with this, we want to be a fair, transparent democracy. Then why are you doing those types of games? So we still would be housing people at the Just Home project and they cannot compel us to move forward.
Question: Yes, I have a colleague that's working on a story about Rikers. If you get a second term, how would you deal with Rikers and the receiver? And how do you handle the closure of the jail?
Mayor Adams: Handle the what?
Question: The closure of the jail complex.
Mayor Adams: In my opinion, there's probably 15 things that I think will be harmful and detrimental to the city if we're not at the helm. And Rikers Island is one of them. The closure of Rikers with the current plan is probably one of the things that lack the most common sense I could ever imagine. 7,400 prisoners are there. 7,400. It started out with eight billion dollars. Now it's costing us $16 billion, four small Rikers in each county, except for Staten Island.
The population could only hold 4,600. What do you do with the rest of them? Zohran said, "Just let them out." They go back to the communities that they prayed on in the first place. 51 percent of the inmates have mental health illness. 51 percent. 18 percent have severe mental health issues. I say let's build a state of the art psychiatric facility so we stop criminalizing the mental health issues. And let's give them the treatment they deserve and also allow outpatients to come and use the facility instead of building four more miniature Rikers.
Now, under my administration, we brought down violence in Rikers Island. We've improved the conditions. The commissioner has been amazing there. When people say, "Well, yeah, Eric, you have deaths on Rikers Island." People commit suicide. People are taking drug overdoses. When we're trying to stop the drugs from coming on Rikers Island, they've taken away the tools that allow us to do that. They've been sending them through the mail. So we want to partner with the U.S. Postal Service. And they're not allowing us to do that.
See, people need to know what are the impacts to what we are attempting to accomplish. And when you think about a receivership, have you been to the federal prisons lately? Go on 30th and Third Avenue and look at that federal prison. If there's one thing the federal authorities have shown all of us, they don't know how to run jails. We are running Rikers Island and we could continue to move it forward. And Rikers Island has had a problem for decades. Three years and nine months. We have made great strides. We should be able to continue the job.
Question: So the Department of Investigation just this morning released a report that found multiple instances where [the] Corrections Department, on Rikers Island, officers provided information to federal immigration authorities, which is in violation of the city's sanctuary laws. The report also found that before the DOI investigation, there actually was no guidance given to the DOC about how to interact with federal immigration officials in a way that would protect the city's sanctuary laws.
Want to get a reaction to this report and a message you have to the city's immigrant communities who are terrified of ICE enforcement currently, especially as you continue your fight to put ICE back on Rikers.
Mayor Adams: Now, tell me something, because my briefing seemed to have been a little different than what you just shared with me. What I got in my briefing was that there was an officer. Are you telling me there were several officers? Because that's not the briefing that I had.
Question: One. I'm sorry. It was one.
Mayor Adams: Oh, one. That's a big difference.
Question: None of the officers, plural, got any guidance. I used the wrong [inaudible].
Mayor Adams: Oh, you're darn right. And that was a big misuse of the tense because I gave it–
Question: It wasn't intentional, but I misread that.
Mayor Adams: I'm glad you said that because they found in their report the action of the officer wasn't intentional either. He made a mistake. Human beings make mistakes.
Question: The crux of the question is your administration has not provided any guidance to DOC officials on what to do with immigrants. So that's my question. It's not about a tense issue. It's a question about your administration not giving any guidance.
Mayor Adams: Take a breath, breathe, breathe. I know you're a little hyper because you made a big mistake.
Question: You make mistakes and it doesn't [inaudible].
Mayor Adams: Listen. So what what we found as–
Question: It's also a violation.
Mayor Adams: Okay, thank you. Thank you all.