Last month, Orange County announced it would end its agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house immigration detainees in its jail without criminal charges. That move was made to comply with a new state law called the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act that went into effect, banning so-called 287(g) agreements.
But on Tuesday, the county's Sheriff Paul Arteta joined 14 other county sheriffs in New York in support of a lawsuit challenging the new law.
Arteta spoke publicly at a press conference about joining 14 other New York sheriffs to sue the state over the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act.
Arteta said the state law, which went into effect Aug. 25, is robbing the county of millions of dollars. The county has had an agreement with ICE to house detainees in Orange County Jail since 2008, Arteta said.
“The governor did not come down to Orange County and speak to the county executive. She did not come down and speak to myself, the Orange County sheriff. They just waved the wand and decided to take that away from the Orange County residents," Arteta said. "Today I have a $10 million hole in the Orange County budget, and the Orange County folks that I protect every day now have to suck it up and find that money somewhere else. Every county department in Orange County suffers because of this unilateral control.”
The lawsuit, brought by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, sues the State of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Letitia James, over the law, which ends formal and informal agreements with immigration enforcement agencies, like ICE.
Orange County Jail is specifically banned from holding immigration detainees without criminal charges. It does not apply to immigration detainees facing criminal charges.
County Attorney Richard Golden said in August that the Department of Homeland Security has already begun transferring non-criminal detainees out of the jail and has 60 business days from Aug. 24 to finish.
Lead attorney on the lawsuit, Mateo Forero, said Tuesday that the sheriffs are not “Albany’s employees.” And, he said, 287(g) agreements allowed the sheriffs to turn people they had detained over to ICE.
“Othe[r sheriffs] entered housing contracts with the U.S. Marshall Service that authorized use for federal beds by ICE. These contracts put federal prisoners in local beds and send a per diem back to the counties. That is not Albany's program," Forero said. "What it is, is a local public safety judgment made by the Officer of the Constitution charged with making it. Albany has now nullified those judgments.”
The lawsuit by FAIR against the state was filed on Aug. 25, and seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the state from voiding 287(g) agreements and ending federal housing agreements, like the one in Orange County Jail, according to FAIR.
Forero said the group had filed a reply brief in support of preliminary relief, and is waiting for the court decide if there will be a hearing or rule on the papers.
But some Orange County legislators said they are surprised by the sheriff's actions. Orange County Legislator Genesis Ramos, a Democrat, said about Arteta’s joining the lawsuit that he had every legal right to do so as an elected official. But she said he caught everyone in the county off guard by joining the lawsuit and said she only found out through the press. She said his decision lacked “transparency.”
She also took issue with FAIR’s framing the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act would prevent local law enforcement from working with ICE to detain people who had committed crimes.
“It does matter because at the end of the day, local cops, local crimes act did not and does not impede the ability for the sheriff's office to work with ICE specifically when and if there is an undocumented individual who has actually committed a crime," she said. "Every single one of us can agree that, documented or not, we want people to be held accountable.”
