NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Evening Roundup: Mayor Adams Campaign Funding Withheld For Now, Ex-Adviser Braces for Indictment, Teachers Seek Literacy Support, and New Jersey Fights ICE Expansion

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign is being denied public matching funds for now as the Campaign Finance Board cites his criminal indictment and failure to meet program rules. Meanwhile, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ former top adviser, says she expects to be indicted by Christmas. Also, New York City teachers are calling for more support to meet the mayor’s literacy goals. Finally, New Jersey is fighting a private prison company in court as ICE seeks to expand detention centers in the state, raising concerns over conditions and oversight. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Guardian reporter Jose Olivares, who has been following the story.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from Delaware, I'm Sean Carlson. Mayor Adams won't receive public matching money for his re-election, at least not now. But the New York City Campaign Finance Board, which met Monday, stopped short of banning Adams from the program altogether. Board Chair Rick Schaefer says they made the decision in light of the mayor's criminal indictment and how the Adams campaign has dealt with the board. His campaign also failed to provide documents and information requested by the mayor. the board. Accordingly, Mayor Adams' campaign for re-election has failed to demonstrate eligibility for public funds payment at this time. An attorney for the Adams campaign says the ruling is

disappointing, but that the campaign will continue to work with the board to ensure they can access public funds at a later date. One of Mayor Adams' closest confidants says she's expecting to be indicted. Ingrid Lewis Martin was the mayor's chief advisor until she resigned abruptly on Sunday. Today, Lewis Martin and her lawyer announced that the Manhattan District Attorney's office had presented a grand jury with evidence they could use to indict her. They said they expect an indictment to come before Christmas. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office to not immediately comment. Mayor Adams has not commented on Lewis Martin's announcement yet. In a new survey, New York City teachers say they want more support to fulfill Mayor Adams'

stated goal of improving literacy rates in public schools. W.N.YC's Jessica Gould reports. More than 60% of the 200 teachers surveyed by the advocacy group Educators for Excellence New York say the shift to a new curriculum is having a positive or somewhat positive effect on instruction. But almost half say they need more support. Mayor Eric Adams has made boosting literacy his administration's top educational goal. Like other states and cities, the public schools are shifting their approach to a stronger focus on phonics. But some students say the new lessons are boring, while teachers say students with disabilities or learning English need more help. Less than half of students in grades 3 through 8 were proficient in reading in the most recent

state exams. Up next, New Jersey is fighting a private prison company in court as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, seeks to expand its detention centers in the state. That story, after the break. New Jersey is in a legal battle. With a private prison company, as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, tries to expand its detention centers in the state. This push comes as ICE looks to grow its facilities in other parts of the country, despite President Biden's previous opposition to private prisons. Some of these private detention centers have also faced scrutiny for poor and inhumane conditions, raising questions about oversight and accountability. My colleague Michael Hill spoke with Jose Olivares.

He's a reporter with The Guardian, and he's published a two-part investigation into contracts with immigration and customs enforcement. across the U.S. Jose, New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy has been in legal battles with Geo Group and previously Core Civic. Two private prison companies regarding jails in the state, what are some of the details of those litigations? Well, thank you for having me on. So in 2021, Governor Phil Murphy passed a law, signed a law, banning the use of private detention

centers to detain immigrants in the state of New Jersey. Now, in response to that, Core Civic, one of the biggest private private prison companies in the country sued the state of New Jersey. And while that litigation was going on in federal courts, the Biden administration submitted a memo in supports of course, Civic, saying, no, we need private detention facilities to detain immigrants in the state of New Jersey for national security purposes. The judge ruled in favor of Core Civic. And now the state has appealed that decision. And so in the coming year, we're going to be seeing arguments before an appellate courts where the state of New Jersey is going to say, nope, we don't want private prison companies profiting

off of immigration detention in our state. So how are GEO Group and others able to place bids with ICE to expand immigration jails in New Jersey anyway? This follows a broader pattern that we've seen under the Biden administration. So this year, what we found in our investigation for the Guardian is that ICE under the Biden administration has expanded and extended the contracts for 14 facilities throughout the country. These are facilities in New Mexico, in Jersey, in New York, in Florida. And these 14 facilities have all fallen under intense scrutiny, not just by immigration advocates and activists, but also by Democratic senators and federal government watchdogs. They've fallen under scrutiny for their conditions, for the

treatment of migrants, seeing that the Biden administration has extended these contracts with these private prison immigration jails throughout the country. considering the threat of the Trump administration to deport millions of immigrants once he steps into office. Jose, why is locating the detention center in New Jersey? Why is that significant? So according to the Biden administration and according to the memo that they submitted when they were supporting core civic in their lawsuit against the state of New Jersey, ICE says,

and the Department of Homeland Security say that it's important to have an immigration detention center in New Jersey because of the proximity to the Newark and international airports. Now, ICE likes to have detention facilities throughout the country that are close to important international airports so that when they do deportation flights to different parts of the country, it's easier to transport undocumented immigrants who are set to be deported from the detention facilities to the international airports. We're focusing on New Jersey, but this would have implications for people in the general metro area. Isn't that right? That's correct. Would not just be for New Jersey, but also immigrants who are detained, you know,

just in general in the general area as well. Obviously, ICE, they have discretion as to where immigrants are going to be detained throughout the country. So some immigrants who are arrested in New York might be detained in upstate New York in a facility there or in Jersey in the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, which is the only existing private ICE jail in the state. At the moment, the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, which is owned and operated by Core Civic, has around 280 people detained there. These are numbers from late October. And ICE is looking to expand detention capacity in the state of New Jersey by 600 beds, so to detain 600 more people. Now, we don't know if the expansion of these 600 beds is going to happen by expanding the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, or, as we've seen implied in court documents, it's likely that there might be a new facility that might reopen in the state of New Jersey called the Delaney Hall Center, which is run by G. group, which is another one of these private prison companies.

Conce, what did local leaders say? During the course of this investigation, I reached out to Senator Booker, a Democratic senator, and he was very emphatic that the state of New Jersey should not have these types of private immigration jails, but also he pushed back on a lot of contracts, a lot of private immigration detention contracts throughout the entire country. Along with other Democratic senators, he co-wrote a letter, pressuring and placing pressure on the Department of Homeland Security and on ICE to close a number of ICE facilities

throughout the country that have really faced some intense backlash for the conditions for detained immigrants in these facilities. And how have GEO Group and Core Civics responded? CoreC Civic did file a lawsuit against the state in Jersey saying, you know, this obviously affects our economic interest, but it also affects the work that we're doing with ICE,

the work that ICE is doing in order to deport people close to the, Newark International Airport. After the federal court ruled in core civics favor, I think private prison companies are optimistic that they're going to continue having private detention, immigration detention operations in the state of New Jersey going forward. That's reporter Jose Olivares in conversation with my colleague, Michael Hill.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.