Here’s how NYC plans to keep more information away from ICE

A handful of New York City agencies will update and strengthen practices aimed at protecting immigrants from detention and deportation under the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement regime.

A new report from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office suggested that seven agencies including the New York City Police Department and the Administration for Children’s Services have room to improve how they uphold sanctuary city policies, which broadly prohibit collaboration with federal authorities on civil immigration enforcement.

While the mayor’s office said that sanctuary policies and existing practices at city agencies are largely working how they should, the audit aimed to take a fuller inventory amid the federal government’s recent crackdown.

Last year, two reports by the city Department of Investigation identified violations of sanctuary policy by both the Department of Correction and the NYPD. Both agencies are implementing recommendations provided by the DOI. 

The report is the result of an executive order signed in February that required six agencies to audit their practices for interacting with federal immigration authorities amid what the report called “dramatic and evolving” shifts in how those authorities carry out enforcement. For the first half of 2025, for example, the Department of Homeless Services reported a “dramatic increase” in immigration enforcement at shelters. Among them were instances in which federal officers pushed past workers to gain access to a homeless shelter or falsely identified themselves as FDNY employees before admitting they were Department of Homeland Security officers. (Those incidents have decreased in recent months, the report notes.)

The agencies will now implement a suite of new recommendations adopted by Mamdani. The Department of Correction will end a practice of sending daily reports to ICE about the “national origin of noncitizens admitted into custody who have qualifying violent and serious convictions” – a practice the mayor’s office said came to light during the audit and that they said has been happening since at least 2015. 

The Department of Social Services will revise protocols for how city property and lots are accessed. The Department of Probation will limit information about immigration status in presentencing investigation reports. The Administration for Children’s Services will audit court reports for “improper inclusion” of immigration status.

The new recommendations apply to the NYPD, ACS, the DOC, DSS, the DOP and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. New York City Health + Hospitals is also undertaking recommendations, including developing protocols for when immigration authorities bring a person in custody to one of their hospitals.

One recent incident not thoroughly discussed in the report is the standoff between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers and protesters outside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn earlier this month, when ICE agents brought a man inside for treatment after his arrest. Local elected officials, including Council Member Sandy Nurse who was on the scene, said it looked like the NYPD (responding to 911 calls about the protest) was coordinating to block off protesters and allow ICE to exit the hospital with the man. The incident has prompted calls for more explicit rules around how NYPD interacts with ICE and strengthening of sanctuary policies.

The report mentioned that a review of the incident is ongoing – it occurred a few days before this audit was due. It also includes a recommendation for the NYPD that any 911 calls related to immigration or the presence of federal immigration authorities be elevated to department leadership and the Legal Bureau.

The report also instructs more frequent and detailed reporting of interactions with federal immigration authorities not explicitly outlined in existing policies. “Agencies should be overinclusive in their reporting to (the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs),” the report says.

The audit also had “several” agencies review contracts with technology companies that may have been “at-risk of data-sharing with federal immigration authorities.” Politico first reported NYPD contracts with the surveillance technology company Vigilant Solutions were under review. 

The mayor’s office said that no contracts with technology companies have been terminated as a result of the audit but did not rule out the possibility that it could happen in the future.