New York’s statewide ban on partnerships between federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement that allow designated officers to perform immigration enforcement functions — known as 287(g) agreements — took effect on Tuesday. Nassau County had been one of two counties in the state that refused to comply, until Wednesday.
The statewide ban was signed into law in May. “We will not allow local cops to be diverted as ICE agents to conduct civil immigration enforcement,” the governor said. “To keep crime down, as we have been doing, we need local police focused on thwarting local crimes. Local police, local crimes. Not conducting civil immigration enforcement, not chasing Stephen Miller’s inane deportation quotas.” Mr. Miller is the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
“Local cops cannot be ordered to aid and abet an out-of-control agency with an $85 billion budget,” the governor continued. “Local cops can no longer be deputized to participate in disorderly raids that too often descend into chaos and violence.”
The state “will never become a sanctuary for criminals,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday. “But at the same time, we are not talking about criminals. We will not sit idly by when ICE commits atrocities on our streets.” She later referred to the two American citizens who were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis in January, whom the then-secretary of homeland security called domestic terrorists, and a blind New York man who did not speak English who “was left to freeze to death by border agents in Buffalo.”
Local police will assist ICE “if a real crime has been committed,” she said. “But on civil immigration matters, ICE is on their own. Let me be clear, any police department or sheriff’s office that disobeys this law, that maintains any agreement with ICE, will face legal action.”
Fifteen county sheriffs did just that on Tuesday, filing a lawsuit to challenge the ban. The governor and State Attorney General Letitia James issued a joint statement in response on Tuesday evening. “The federal government claims they are going after the ‘worst of the worst,’ but every American has seen the reality: ICE is terrorizing communities and families with indiscriminate raids, detaining people without regard for criminal record, and using local law enforcement to deliver on the administration’s mass deportation agenda,” they said.
The vast majority of the state’s law enforcement agencies were successfully protecting their communities without any collaboration with ICE, they said. “The claim that these sheriffs cannot do the same says more about them than it does about the law.” They called the lawsuit “nothing but a frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars,” and said that courts have already declined to block the law, “and we are confident they will do so again. In the meantime, we expect all law enforcement agencies in New York to uphold state law.”
“We’ve worked hard to drive down crime to record lows,” the governor said, “and that includes working with ICE to track down and apprehend criminals, and I’m being very specific when I say this, criminals. Always have, always will. Once they’re convicted and do their time, we work with ICE to ensure they’re deported.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a close ally of the Trump administration, is the governor’s Republican opponent in the Nov. 3 election. Mr. Blakeman has maintained 287(g) agreements and established partnerships to deputize Nassau officers for immigration enforcement activities.
Newsday reported on Tuesday that the State Attorney General’s Office of Immigrant Trust issued subpoenas to the Nassau County Sheriff and Police Departments and that the governor has promised legal consequences for agencies that refused to curtail agreements with ICE.
A Siena poll conducted between Aug. 3 and Aug. 6 had Ms. Hochul leading Mr. Blakeman by 10 percentage points, 49 percent to 39 percent, though that lead had narrowed from an earlier 20 percentage points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report lists the state in its “Solid Democrat” column.”
