New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Local Cops Local Crimes Act this year. The law restricts the collaboration between local law enforcement and federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The law has become a campaign issue and drawn pushback from local law enforcement officials who say the state is reaching past its authority; immigrant advocates said the law does not go far enough. WAMC's Maryam Ahmad spoke with Sam Dingman on Northeast Notebook Live Monday about the latest developments after the ban was introduced.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dingman: Give us some background here. What are 287(g) agreements?
Ahmad: Yeah, so 287(g) refers to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Basically, these are agreements that allow local law enforcement to act in some capacity as immigration enforcement. That could mean detentions in local jails, collaborating with ICE to make arrests, or sharing information with ICE to respond to federal warrants.
In New York, Rensselaer County has had an agreement with ICE since 2018, and it was the first in the state to do so. Since then, 11 other municipalities also signed similar agreements. There are also, importantly, some counties that do not have signed formal agreements with ICE, but still share information based on federal warrants or even agreements through the U.S. Marshal Service.
Dingman: All right, so let's talk about this ban. What led to it in the first place?
Ahmad: High-level Democrats across the country have voiced concerns regarding the ongoing aggressive ICE enforcement actions during the second Trump administration. The immigration package signed by Governor Hochul this year also included the formation of a new office under the Attorney General, the Office of Immigrant Trust. Earlier this year, AG Letitia James sent letters to law enforcement agencies urging them to end their 287(g) agreements. Most of these enforcement agencies heeded the warning and scrapped their agreements, but the lone holdout is Rensselaer County. Now, the Rensselaer County Sheriff, along with 12 other county sheriffs, are suing the state government to overturn the ban.
Dingman: And what about advocates? What are they saying?
Ahmad: Interestingly enough, advocates both for the ban and against say the law is too broad. The key concern is the portion of the law which addresses the "informal agreements." The law specifies no local law enforcement agency can enter a formal or informal agreement to assist immigration enforcement, or to specifically house individuals for civil immigration violations, but it does allow for existing contracts for detaining people facing federal criminal charges. I recently spoke to Iridian Riccobono Lucas, who's the campaigns coordinator with Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, to get a sense of what these informal agreements actually look like in action. She said they could sometimes lead to immigrants who are reaching out to local law enforcement to be referred to ICE.
Lucas: Right here in the mid to upper Hudson Valley, we have personally worked with a community member who was communicating with an investigator within law enforcement about a domestic violence case. Because of miscommunication and the law enforcement officer not taking the right steps to ensure correct translation and interpretation, there was a miscommunication that ultimately led to her being funneled to an ICE agent.
Ahmad: But the law enforcement agencies that do have these agreements maintain that they need the resources provided by ICE.
Dingman: This part seems really critical to me. What you're saying, if I'm understanding correctly, is that these counties that have these agreements receive money from the federal government for immigration enforcement as a result of the 287(g) agreement?
Ahmad: Yes, and even counties that have informal agreements, like through the U.S. Marshal Service, still receive that money. Orange County is one of them. Sheriff Paul Arteta said in a press conference announcing the lawsuit last month that the county would lose $10 million.
Arteta: 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.
Dingman: So far we've talked about how this is an issue for folks in the law enforcement community, and folks in the advocacy community on behalf of immigrants. But this has also become a political issue. It's cropping up in this year's election, especially New York's gubernatorial election, where we have two candidates who are literally on opposing sides of the lawsuit.
Ahmad: Right, in their debate last week, incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman, who's the Nassau County executive, Nassau County is part of the lawsuit, traded barbs back and forth on Hochul's immigration policy and Blakeman's position on the debate stage last week. Also important to note, Blakeman's running mate Todd Hood is the Madison County Sheriff. Madison County is also part of this lawsuit.
Dingman: Well, so what happens next?
Ahmad: So this lawsuit is still ongoing. We also don't really fully know what enforcement actions the Office of Immigrant Trust is looking to take. Also, I've heard from immigrant advocates, who are concerned about an increase in transfers of people from ICE offices in New York to other states — in particular women who are detained by ICE — as there's no detention facility for women in the state.
Dingman: And this is something you and I spoke about on the show last week, correct? There's a number of immigrants who, and women in particular, have ended up getting transferred to, for example, the Dilley Detention Center in Texas because of this.
Ahmad: Right. The Dilley Detention Center is a family detention center, and so women and children who are in families together will be sent there. But we've heard from the Marshall Project last week that women and their children were being transferred to hotels for temporary detention before being taken to Dilley or being deported altogether.
Dingman: And there is, if I'm not mistaken, a significant deadline approaching when it comes to the implementation of Governor Hochul's Local Cops Local Crimes Act, correct?
Ahmad: Yes. The portion of the law that outlaws detention of people with civil immigration violations will take effect Nov. 25. It's still up in the air as to what the impact of the ban is actually going to look like.
