New York Law Banning Local Police Agreements With ICE Takes Effect as Sheriffs Sue
Rights & JusticeWell-covered
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The Facts
- New York's Local Cops, Local Crimes Act took effect Aug. 25, barring local agencies from 287(g) agreements with ICE.
- Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the law in May after it passed as part of the state budget.
- The law also bars local jails and detention centers from holding people for ICE for civil immigration enforcement.
- Hochul said any police department or sheriff's office that keeps an ICE agreement will face legal action.
- More than a dozen New York sheriffs filed a federal lawsuit led by Rensselaer County Sheriff Kyle Bourgault.
- That lawsuit argues the law is unconstitutional and unlawfully restricts sheriffs' ability to enter federal immigration-enforcement agreements.
- A court previously declined to block the law's 287(g) provisions, rejecting a U.S. Justice Department injunction request.
- Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for governor, has not ended his county's ICE agreements.
- Attorney General Letitia James's office is responsible for enforcing the law against agencies that do not comply.
Context
What is a 287(g) agreement?
A 287(g) agreement is a formal partnership, first authorized in 1996, that lets state and local officers perform specific federal immigration duties under ICE direction CNYhomepage,Westfair Communicat…. Those duties have included identifying and processing people with pending criminal charges and serving administrative warrants on people in local custody WPIX.
How many agencies were affected, and did they comply?
The Attorney General's new Office of Immigrant Trust sent warning letters to the 12 New York law enforcement agencies with 287(g) agreements, and Hochul said most were dissolved before the deadline Journal News. Newsday reported that the Nassau County police and sheriff departments, plus the Broome, Cattaraugus and Rensselaer county sheriff departments, had not wound down their agreements Newsday. James sent subpoenas Tuesday to several counties she says have not complied Gothamist.
What is the dispute in Newburgh about?
A vacant 42,377-square-foot warehouse at 800 Corporate Boulevard in Newburgh now appears on a list of federally owned or leased properties, and residents fear it could be used to hold, process and transport immigrants before deportation NYT. ICE has not confirmed any such plan, and the prospect has prompted protests, legislative resolutions and calls for Hochul to intervene NYT.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Both treat the sheriffs' continued ICE agreements as open defiance of a law now in force, and both accept the federal courts as the place where it gets settled.
- Where Left and Right split
- Whether the story is about elected officials refusing to obey a law shielding people from civil immigration detention, or about a state stripping sheriffs of judgment voters gave them.
- Why they won’t converge
- The split is about which mandate outranks which — an elected sheriff's ballot-box claim to enforcement discretion versus the state's claim to set the ceiling on it — so establishing exactly who complied and who did not settles nothing.
How left and right read it
A law that shields people from being held in a local jail for civil immigration enforcement is worth nothing if the officials who dislike it can simply opt out. The state already won the first round, because a court declined to block the 287(g) provisions even when the Justice Department asked. So the question is not whether sheriffs and county executives still holding ICE agreements disagree; it is when refusal stops being a political posture and starts being what it plainly is.
“If Mr. Blakeman does not wind down his county's agreement, he will be breaking the law.” — The New York Times
Voters elect sheriffs to exercise judgment about public safety, so a ban on voluntary cooperation with federal officers takes that judgment from the people who granted it. Passed inside the state budget in May, it is now backed by threats of legal action rather than argument — but more than a dozen sheriffs are contesting it in federal court as an unconstitutional limit on their authority. Repeal it.
“Gov. Kathy Hochul raced to gaslight New York on Tuesday by falsely claiming her new anti-ICE law will boost public safety, when it will do the reverse.” — New York Post
The receipts — all 32 sources
Independent coverage (32)
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