New York banned 287(g) agreements, barred local jails from renting space to ICE, and required federal agents to identify themselves during enforcement operations. The administration responded by threatening to increase ICE deployments across New York City. The border czar told the governor he would escalate operations before she signed the bill.
This is retaliation against a state exercising its constitutional authority. Local policing is a state and local function. No state should face federal punishment for refusing to conscript its police force into immigration enforcement.
I am asking you to oppose any legislation or executive action that conditions federal funding on local ICE cooperation. I am also asking you to cosponsor legislation that codifies the right of states and localities to set their own policies on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
New York has 4.4 million immigrants. When local police become immigration agents, people stop reporting crimes, witnesses stop cooperating, and public safety suffers for everyone. The communities that refuse to cooperate with ICE are not obstructing federal law. They are protecting the trust that makes local policing work.
