Judge Orders New York City to Comply With ICE Subpoena for Bronx Shelter Residents; Agent Said 12 Residents Faced Serious Charges

A federal judge in Manhattan has ordered New York City to comply with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoena seeking identifying information on men living at a city-run homeless shelter in the Bronx, with a court-appointed special master narrowing the list to residents with serious criminal histories before anything goes to the agency. The Digital Free Press read U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan's 12-page memorandum opinion and order, filed Nov. 6 in United States v. The City of New York, No. 25-mc-559.

"The City has not shown that producing this list would be unduly burdensome," Kaplan wrote. "Under the applicable case law, the Court therefore has no choice but to compel the subpoena's enforcement, as modified by the appointment and role of a special master."

What the ICE Subpoena Asks For

The opinion lays out four rounds of subpoenas. On Aug. 6, 2025, ICE asked for the full name and date of birth of all males at two city-run shelters. The city called that request "an improper fishing expedition lacking any legitimate investigative purpose" and declined. ICE then withdrew it and on Aug. 22, 2025, issued a narrower subpoena aimed at the Bruckner shelter at 825 East 141st Street in the Bronx, seeking noncitizen men with criminal histories tied to eight offenses: murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, assault, grand larceny, burglary and assault of a law enforcement officer. The city again refused, and a Sept. 5 amendment sent through the U.S. Attorney's Office did not change that.

The subpoena in the case, issued Oct. 6, 2025, sought "records sufficient to identify the Full Name and Date of Birth of all males currently lodged or residing" at the facility. At a March 18, 2026, hearing, a government lawyer told the court that "the only information the government wants to receive" is a list of residents with a criminal history of those eight offenses, and that it was "more than willing to be limited to that information" through a special master.

What the Agent Told the Court

The government's case rests on two affidavits from George Ioannidis, an assistant special agent in charge at the New York field office of Homeland Security Investigations. According to the opinion, he said ICE was aware of about 100 people who received immigration mail at the shelter, at least 20 people who had entered the country illegally and listed it as their residence, and 12 people who listed it as their residence and had been charged with one of the eight offenses.

He said the records could help prove violations of federal laws on harboring, illegal entry and reentry, failing to depart after a removal order and failing to register.

Why the Judge Rejected the City's Arguments

Kaplan wrote that a court's role in enforcing an administrative subpoena is "extremely limited" and that it must defer to the agency on relevance "so long as it is not obviously wrong." He rejected the city's description of the request as "census-level" information, writing that it "is not akin to a request for 'census-level' information of an entire city block" because it targets "a shelter known to house migrants."

The city also argued that ICE was using the subpoena "to circumvent and undermine the City's sanctuary city laws" and that the agency's motive was "more political than investigatory." Kaplan called that "speculation" that "is unsupported by the record." In a footnote, he noted that the United States has separately sued the city to strike down those laws. He also distinguished two 2025 rulings, from Massachusetts and Washington state, in which judges found broad subpoenas were served to harass, saying those circumstances "are not present here."

Parts of the factual background are blacked out in the public version of the opinion. Gothamist reported that Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in February that he plans to phase out the Bruckner shelter by the end of the year. The opinion does not say when the city must hand over the list.

Sources: Memorandum Opinion and Order Granting Petition to Compel (Redacted), United States v. The City of New York, No. 1:25-mc-00559-LAK (S.D.N.Y.), Dkt. 49, filed Nov. 6, 2026 (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.654411/gov.uscourts.nysd.654411.49.0_1.pdf); Gothamist, Nov. 9, 2026 (https://gothamist.com/news/federal-judge-rules-mamdani-administration-must-give-ice-names-of-bronx-shelter-residents); New York Post, Nov. 8, 2026 (https://nypost.com/2026/11/08/us-news/mamdani-admin-must-hand-ice-the-names-of-nyc-homeless-shelter-residents-court/). Cover photo: New York City Hall, by Nielsoncaetanosalmeron, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).