NYC Council Oversight Committee to review compliance with sanctuary city laws

Shekar Krishnan wants to monitor landlords, big corporations and city agencies as the newly appointed chair of the New York City Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigations. And he’s keen to use the committee’s subpoena power – including on private companies. 

The powerful committee has its first hearing on Thursday, examining agency compliance with the city’s raft of sanctuary laws that protect immigrant New Yorkers. The joint hearing, held in conjunction with the council’s Committee on Criminal Justice, is expected to center on a bombshell report published by the Department of Investigation late last year which found that several city officials within the New York City Police Department and Department of Correction violated the city’s sanctuary laws by sharing information or providing assistance to federal immigration authorities.

These incidents occurred under the Adams administration, but many questions remain around the extent of the information that was shared. That’ll be a focus during the hearing as will examining how the NYPD, DOC and other city agencies have complied with the DOI’s guidance to improve training and reporting structures – especially in light of immigration authorities’ recent detention of a 29-year-old Columbia University student. 

But the NYPD isn’t expected to testify Thursday. Christopher Ryan, acting commissioner of DOI, and James Conroy, deputy commissioner of legal matters and general counsel at DOC, are expected to be there, according to a spokesperson for the City Council speaker’s office. 

City & State caught up with Krishnan, the first Indian-American elected to the council and a former civil rights lawyer for low-income tenants, ahead of Thursday’s hearing to discuss his vision for the Committee on Oversight and Investigations. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

The Committee on Oversight and Investigations’ first hearing will center on the Department of Investigations’ recent report on how agencies have complied with the city’s sanctuary laws. What can we expect from that hearing?

We have strong sanctuary laws here in our city that protect immigrant New Yorkers, but we have to make sure that they are being enforced on the ground. That's why, given the Department of Investigation’s report last fall, we thought it was crucial at this moment to get a closer look at how the city is complying with our sanctuary policies. Ultimately, we have to keep our immigrant New Yorkers and all New Yorkers safe. This is a very vexing question on my mind, both because of what's happened in Minneapolis and the ever-present fear of what the Trump administration will do with the National Guard and ICE here in New York City.

What’s your vision for the Committee on Oversight and Investigations? 

I'm honored that Speaker Menin asked me to lead the Oversight and Investigations Committee. My vision is to hold anyone or anything accountable that's trying to take advantage of New Yorkers – from predatory corporations that are exploiting their workers to bad landlords that are harassing tenants out of their homes, to rooting out the kind of corruption that we saw in City Hall over the last four years. I'm proud to be the City Council's anti-corruption fighter in this new era.

I think my track record over the last four years has made clear that I am unafraid to take on the big fights, to hold bad corporations and landlords accountable and to make sure that city agencies are delivering the way they should be. I’m going to bring that record of standing up for drivers, for workers, for immigrants to the committee so we can keep fighting for our most vulnerable New Yorkers.  

Speaker Julie Menin has talked about wielding the council’s subpoena power to investigate private businesses and city agencies – something that hasn’t really been done in recent years. Would this flow through the oversight committee? 

Yes, there is subpoena power within the oversight committee. I see it as a critical and underutilized tool in our arsenal to make sure that we are fighting for everyday New Yorkers. Using our subpoena power to hold predatory corporations accountable is crucial to making sure that we are getting all the information that we need from city agencies to ensure they are delivering on their mission to serve New Yorkers. These are going to be important reasons that we have to revive the subpoena power within the Council’s oversight committee in a responsible way. I'm looking forward to working with Speaker Menin to do so.

Had the council wielded its subpoena power under the Adams administration, how might things have turned out differently? What might that have looked like? 

To be clear, the council has always had subpoena power. As a lawyer, I've always strongly advocated that we should be using it as needed to make sure that we are advancing our mission. Just look at the last four years, the Adams administration and City Hall in particular, was rife with corruption – from no-bid contracts, to the way in which city property was disposed of, to nepotism and so much more. I think we could have and should have done even more to combat that corruption. Subpoena power was and is one tool to do so. 

Going forward though, I think it’s critical that we look back at the prior administration that had seen the most corruption since Tammany Hall. We have to look back at it to come up with systemic reforms to make sure that we never see that kind of corruption again. 

We are also in a moment right now where we are seeing big corporations exploiting their own workers. I’m proud that we stood up for our taxi drivers in the city, taking on billion dollar corporations like Uber and Lyft to make sure that drivers were not wrongfully fired, especially without due process. In all of these fights where we are going up against these big corporations, subpoena power is a tool to hold them accountable – not just to city government, but to everyday New Yorkers. I’d also add that we’ve got landlords all over the city from Jackson Heights to the Upper West Side that have been severely mistreating their tenants, abandoning buildings, forcing them out of their homes and engaging in blatantly illegal tactics. Subpoena power is one tool in a number that we have to hold those bad landlords accountable. 

In mid-January, the council overrode former Mayor Eric Adams’ veto of your legislation seeking to prevent rideshare companies from firing drivers without just cause. While that’s slated to take effect, how will the council make sure the law is actually implemented?

That is exactly where oversight is most critical: to identify bad actors that need to be held accountable, to identify lapses in city government services and to make sure that the laws we pass are actually implemented and enforced. We passed the largest protection for drivers in the country. With this legislation, we have set a standard in New York City for Uber and Lyft drivers across the country. No longer can they fire drivers at will. That kind of exploitation of workers will never happen again because of what we passed. 

We have a partner in Mayor Mamdani. As two of very few Indian Americans serving in elected office, we have fought side by side for our taxi drivers, many of whom are immigrants, many of whom are South Asian. I represent Jackson Heights, the largest population of driver residents in all of New York City. We’ve sat on the front lines together, we’ve engaged in civil disobedience and we’ve been arrested together fighting for taxi drivers in the medallion crisis. Now we’re taking on the biggest crisis since then, which was the wrongful deactivation and firing of drivers. 

All that to say, Mayor Mamdani’s City Hall has committed to working with us to make sure the law is implemented exactly as the mandate requires. We will absolutely be holding hearings investigating these corporations’ practices and scrutinizing what they are doing. I want to be very clear about this. Those who choose to break the law, laws that we have enacted in the City Council, will feel the full force of our oversight powers.