Representative Nick LaLota of New York’s First Congressional District, who pointedly announced last month that he was cutting off East Hampton Town and Village from federal community project funding over their adoption of laws prohibiting cooperation or participation with the federal government in civil immigration enforcement, is doubling down on his threat to the easternmost municipalities he represents in Congress, trumpeting his scorn for their local laws and elected officials.
Local officials and an immigrants’ advocate fired back, saying the congressman does not understand the town’s law, “obviously hasn’t read” the village’s law, and is creating “false talking points for an election.”
In April, the village board voted unanimously to establish a new section of the code to prohibit entering into Section 287(g) agreements, a partnership between federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement allowing designated officers to perform immigration enforcement functions. It acknowledges the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws and that federal law pre-empts conflicting state or local laws. But it adds that village personnel “shall not use village resources, equipment, property, databases, or funds to investigate, detain, question, arrest, or transport any individual solely for purposes of federal civil immigration enforcement, except pursuant to a judicial warrant or as otherwise required by law.”
It also specifies that the village’s Flock license plate reader surveillance cameras shall not be accessed, queried, or shared for purposes of federal civil immigration enforcement.
The town adopted similar legislation in May. Both municipalities’ laws were championed by Organizacion Latino Americana of Eastern Long Island, or OLA.
In June, Mr. LaLota, a Republican seeking a third term in the House of Representatives, wrote to town supervisors, mayors, and other local government officials. “I will not support community project funding requests from municipalities that have adopted policies, enacted local laws, or taken official actions that deliberately obstruct, impede, or refuse lawful cooperation with federal authorities carrying out their responsibilities under federal law,” he wrote.
Known as earmarks, community project funding gives individual members of Congress wide latitude to appropriate the money. At a gathering to announce a $3.5 million appropriation to Huntington Town’s Highway Department last week, Mr. LaLota repeated his threat to the town and village. As quoted in Newsday, he advised municipalities to “choose the money instead of going broke, when [East Hampton] went woke.”
On the airwaves and social media, he continued to call out the municipalities he represents. On the July 3 edition of the “Cats & Cosby” show on WABC radio, he said the town and village are “run by some pretty far-left individuals,” a reference to Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Mayor Jerry Larsen respectively, who he asserted “are trying to out-Mamdani each other,” referring to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “They just got done in a Democrat primary competing against each other, and the competition was contemporaneous with each of them adopting sanctuary policies for their specific jurisdictions . . . making those communities more dangerous, of course, by barring the cooperation of local law enforcement with federal law enforcement as it pertains to immigration law.”
The local laws, he told the hosts, are the basis “of some of this mayhem we’re seeing across the nation in places like Minnesota, Los Angeles, and other places.” In separate incidents in January, ICE agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis during protests against the masked, armed agents’ actions in their community. This month, ICE agents shot and killed a Mexican man during a traffic stop in Houston and, in Biddeford, Me., a Colombian immigrant who was authorized to work in the United States. Both were on their way to work. Neither was the target of the agents’ particular operation.
Since President Trump, whose 2024 campaign received an early endorsement from Mr. LaLota, was sworn in for a second term in January 2025, at least 12 people have been killed in shootings and violent incidents involving ICE agents. More than 60 others have died while in ICE custody or inside immigration detention facilities.
Mr. LaLota told the radio hosts that his promise to cut off the town and village from community project funding was “also a warning sign to some of these other drifting municipalities: Don’t go there.”
The town and village “just adopted Suffolk County’s first Mamdani-Hochul-style sanctuary policies, blocking cooperation with federal immigration authorities, even to remove illegal immigrants in custody on rape, assault, or DUI charges,” he wrote on social media on July 13, referring to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a frequent target, along with the New York City mayor. “But I won’t let Long Island become NYC’s sixth borough. No CPF funding until they reverse these dangerous policies.”
In a July 16 letter to constituents, Mr. LaLota again singled out the town and village. Republican and Democratic supervisors alike “have all rightly resisted calls from a Far Left open-borders organization to adopt sanctuary city policies,” he wrote, employing capitalization reminiscent of that in the president’s multitudinous social media posts. “Of Long Island’s 13 towns and 96 incorporated villages, only East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village chose a different path.”
Under the local laws, he wrote, “if either municipality had an illegal immigrant in custody following an arrest for crimes such as possessing child sexual abuse material, third-degree assault, and second-degree robbery while aided by another person, local officials could not use local personnel or vehicles to transport that individual into federal custody. Coupled with New York’s cashless bail laws, these sanctuary policies require that those violent criminal illegal aliens be expeditiously released from custody.”
The congressman “obviously hasn’t read our legislation,” Mr. Larsen, a former chief of the village’s Police Department, said on Monday, “because if he had taken the time to read the legislation, he would hopefully understand that this has nothing to do with criminal offenses and is in no way impacting our communities in a dangerous manner.”
“What is dangerous,” the mayor added, “is sending untrained immigration officers into communities, causing chaos.”
In an email on Monday, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez also said the congressman’s remarks misrepresent the town’s law, which “does not require the release of anyone charged with a crime” and “does not prevent cooperation with federal authorities when required by law.” The Police Department, she said, “could not transport someone directly to federal immigration authorities because of the criminal charges cited by the congressman. The person must first be processed and arraigned. A judge then determines whether the person is released, held on bail, or remanded to the Suffolk County jail.” If federal authorities present a judicial warrant or court order while the person remains in custody, law enforcement can hold the person for pickup, she said.
“The congressman is attacking East Hampton for legal restrictions and police procedures that apply throughout Suffolk County,” Ms. Burke-Gonzlez wrote. “The town’s law largely mirrors the rules already followed by local police departments across the East End. Its principal changes are additional reporting to the town board, a new citizens task force, and a prohibition against entering a 287(g) agreement.” The state has since enacted a statewide prohibition on those agreements upon the adoption of its most recent budget.
Withholding federal funding because the town board required additional Police Department reporting and creating an advisory committee “is not a serious public safety policy,” she said, but rather “a bizarre form of political retaliation over two basic measures, and the only practical result is our residents’ tax dollars are sent elsewhere.”
Town police, she added, will arrest anyone who commits a crime, cooperate fully with its law enforcement partners, and comply with every judicial warrant and court order. “We will not direct our officers to exceed their lawful authority, and our residents should not lose access to their own tax dollars because the congressman has chosen to manufacture a political fight.”
Minerva Perez, the executive director of OLA, responded in a public statement on Monday, saying that Mr. LaLota “continues to avoid the very simple question we have posed to him directly: ‘What are the specific provisions of the local law that the congressman opposes?’ “ Where, she asked, “does our law stop local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement when required by law?” The congressman, she charged, “is creating mistruths and confusion for his personal gain.”
Mr. LaLota, she wrote, “is continuing to sow disunity among East End residents and municipalities. He is not interested in facts or the public safety of our beautiful region.” He is creating “false talking points for an election,” she wrote, employing “name calling, threats, misinformation, and other immature and damaging tactics,” which she called “a dangerous use of his platform.”
The “public safety law” promoted by OLA, Ms. Perez reiterated, “clearly states that nothing in the local law shall interfere with the proper exercise of federal immigration enforcement in accordance with federal law.”
OLA will continue to urge towns and villages to adopt legislation that, she wrote, “is a logical next step to safeguarding our towns and villages from chaos and panic that run through our shared communities during random immigration raids.”
Mr. LaLota did not reply to a request for comment by press time.
