NYC Mayor Eric Adams, an ex-cop, has ‘upper hand’ over other sanctuary city mayors: Blue Lives Matter founder

Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams is headed to Capitol Hill with the “upper hand” over four other big-city leaders Wednesday as they prepare to face a congressional grilling over “sanctuary” policies that protect illegal aliens and complicate federal immigration enforcement, according to the founder of a pro-police nonprofit.

The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday is expected to also include testimony from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

Unlike the others, Adams is a former police captain and has publicly said he plans to work with the Trump administration to fight migrant crime.

“Criminal alien predators should not be free to roam our communities,” said Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican and the committee’s chair. “State and local governments that refuse to comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts should not receive a penny of federal funding. President Trump and his administration are rightfully taking action against sanctuary cities.”

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Adams’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but of the four Democrat mayors invited to the hearing, he has publicly appeared the most open to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on criminal illegal aliens. 

“Mayor Adams has the upper hand, and why is that? Because he wore the uniform and the boots of the officers that go out there every single day,” said Joseph Imperatrice, a police sergeant and the founder of Blue Lives Matter. “He has that side and that experience to be able to say, ‘I did this. I know what needs to be done to keep people safe. And as the mayor, my No. 1 responsibility is public safety. So I need all the tools in this chest to do my job properly.’” 

For that reason, Imperatrice told Fox News Digital, he expects Adams to offer a different perspective from the left-wing peers from Boston, Chicago and Denver.

“As long as he sticks to that, and he sticks to the basics of what he knows from actually doing it, he can make some very valid points,” he said.

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City police leaders last year blamed criminal illegals for a “wave of migrant crime” primarily linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which established a foothold in the Big Apple’s shelter system. In particular, bail reform policies that let low-level offenders back on the streets were repeatedly blamed for the rash of crimes.

“When there’s no accountability, and they’re continuously doing crimes and continuously creating new crime victims, that’s a problem,” Imperatrice said. “People living in the city don’t want to feel like the crime is out of control. They want to feel that they could wake up [and] go on the subway or walk on a city street and not have to look over their shoulder.”

Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director, said Adams’ colleagues are hurting public safety in their own cities by feuding with Trump over immigration enforcement. 

“Cartels are powerful, and they infiltrate into any city where there’s lax law enforcement,” he told Fox News Digital. “Fentanyl is the new crack cocaine. It is lethal, plentiful and highly destructive to neighborhoods. These drugs have a [disparate] impact on the less wealthy and minorities. Drugs in general drive crime. It’s a fact.”

The same cities are also withholding crime statistics from the FBI to distort public perception, he alleged.

Adams, who often butted heads with the Biden-Harris administration over an open border policy that flooded his city with more than 200,000 unvetted migrants, has already flagged that he intends to cooperate more with the Trump administration than some of his colleagues and predecessors.

In February, after a meeting with border czar Tom Homan, he said he would allow ICE to reopen an office in the city’s main jail at Rikers Island.

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“ICE agents would specifically be focused on assisting the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs,” Adams said at the time.

That’s a commonsense move, according to Imperatrice, because regulations that prevent law enforcement agencies from working together do nothing to improve public safety.

“There are legitimate arguments that could be made that city police departments investigating crimes don’t want to be viewed as immigration enforcement in order to gain trust and get information about crimes in immigrant communities,” said Thad Bingel, a former Department of Homeland Security official from the George W. Bush administration. “But no one is asking local police departments to conduct immigration raids or go out and enforce federal immigration laws, which is a federal responsibility of DHS.”

Sheltering Biden-era migrants cost New York taxpayers about $7 billion, Adams has said, with little relief from the former occupant of the White House.

Adams said in January that the city would work with ICE as part of Trump’s nationwide crackdown on criminal illegals, even with sanctuary laws in place in the state and city.

“There ought to be a commonsense middle ground here that if you expect federal grants for your city, then at a bare minimum, when you have a criminal alien in custody for a crime, someone wanted by ICE, that you contact ICE and hold them in custody for some small amount of time until they can be picked up by federal officer,” Bingel said. “That is just common sense and a basic level of expected cooperation.”

Violating a state sanctuary law cost nearby Suffolk County $60 million in December. U.S. District Judge William Kuntz, nominated by then-President Barack Obama in 2011, awarded the damages to illegal aliens who were held on ICE detainers at the county jail.

The Trump administration followed up with a lawsuit against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly using state sanctuary laws to shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration enforcement.

“It’s very important that [in] today’s day and age, we get past this Democrat and Republican nonsense and get on the same page, do things for the right reasons for the people that are asking for it,” Imperatrice said. “People want public safety. They want a good quality of life, and they don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican that enacts it.”

Trump and Adams can put that idea to the test.

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.