NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — New York Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing new legislation that would limit cooperation between local law enforcement and US immigration officials, casting the measure as a message to the Trump administration in the wake of violent incidents involving federal agents in other parts of the country.
The new bills would overturn prior state provisions that enabled federal agencies to deputize local police resources for operations involving immigration operations. The proposal would also bar municipal jails from being used for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
“We’re sending a strong message to ICE,” Hochul said in a press conference Friday alongside New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and several district attorneys from around the state. The governor said the goal is to “fortify ourselves” as New York prepares for a potential increase in federal immigration activity in the state.
“You will not weaponize local police officers against their own communities in the state of New York,” she said. “You will not use our police tech to track people who have done nothing wrong. You will not throw innocent people into our jails and you will do everything only with a judicial order.”
Hochul emphasized that New York would continue cooperating with federal authorities on cases involving violent crimes. The legislation would allow information-sharing and custody transfers when a judge issues a warrant or when a person has been convicted of serious violent offenses.
President Donald Trump said this week that New York and other Democratic-led cities were “heading in the wrong direction.”
Hochul’s proposal comes less than a week after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was protesting their operations in Minneapolis. Pretti was the second US citizen killed by federal agents in Minnesota, following the shooting death of Renee Good earlier in January.
The killings set off nationwide protests against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. On Friday, demonstrators have called for a nationwide strike, asking Americans to skip school and work and avoid spending at businesses.
In New York, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican expected to challenge Hochul in this year’s gubernatorial race, assailed her plan to bar local cooperation with ICE and said it would endanger public safety.
“These critical agreements have long helped remove violent offenders — including murderers, sex traffickers, gang members, and other dangerous criminals — from our streets, and assisted police in keeping them in custody when Hochul’s bail law would otherwise force their release,” Blakeman said in a statement. “Now, local law enforcement’s hands are tied, and these criminals will be released back into our communities.”
But Democrats are pushing measures to curtail the White House efforts, arguing the efforts are necessary to protect the public from agents that they say have engaged in illegal actions toward civilians.
New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill announced Wednesday that the state was setting up a portal for residents to upload cell phone video of ICE agents in the streets.
“Get your phone out, we want to know,” she said in an appearance on the late-night television program The Daily Show. “They have not been forthcoming. They will not tell us who they are.”
In New York, Hochul pledged to work with state lawmakers to pass her legislation “as quickly as possible” even as the state maintains a policy of cooperating with the federal government to apprehend violent criminals.
“Public safety must be pursued lawfully, transparently and with humanity,” Hochul said. “These very principles have been abandoned by our federal government and our immigration officers.”
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