Judge orders NYC to give ICE names of some men at its last emergency migrant shelter in the Bronx

A federal judge has ordered New York City to hand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the names and birth dates of some of the men living at its large homeless shelter on Bruckner Boulevard in the South Bronx, siding with ICE in a subpoena fight the city has waged for more than a year.

In a 12-page order issued Friday, Nov. 6, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan compelled Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration to comply, Politico reported. "The City has not shown that producing this list would be unduly burdensome," Kaplan wrote, according to Gothamist. "Under the applicable case law, the Court therefore has no choice but to compel the subpoena's enforcement."

What the order covers

• Who: certain male residents of the city-run shelter on Bruckner Boulevard. The city must provide their names, birthdays and any additional records that would help ICE identify them, Gothamist reported.
• Narrowed list: ICE originally asked for the names of all residents. Under the ruling, a special master will identify only residents with "serious criminal histories." Politico reported the federal government tailored its request to residents accused of certain violent crimes and agreed to the special master.
• Why ICE wants it: the agency says it needs the information for an investigation into whether residents are in the country illegally and subject to deportation.

The shelter and the long fight

The shelter is a converted warehouse that sleeps more than 2,000 people and is the city's last emergency migrant housing facility. Mamdani said in February that he plans to phase it out by the end of the year, Gothamist reported.

Since August 2025, ICE has filed four separate subpoenas seeking personal information about residents of city shelters, and the city has fought each of them. In the court record, the city called an earlier request a "fishing expedition lacking any legitimate investigative purpose." City Hall bars its agencies from cooperating with ICE and has cited a confidentiality policy dating to a 2003 mayoral executive order that generally prohibits city workers from disclosing information such as immigration status, How2NewYork reported.

Calls to appeal

The New York Immigration Coalition, which represents more than 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups, wants the city to appeal. Its president and CEO, Murad Awawdeh, told Gothamist that City Hall and Albany must act to protect "everyone that's in their care," and argued that handing over data for civil immigration enforcement would violate the city's sanctuary law.

The mayor's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Saturday, and the city had not said publicly whether it would appeal. NewYorkNews.app will update this story when it does.