NY Gov. Hochul, AG James warn Nassau County to cut ties with ICE

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jul 24, 2026

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NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James on Friday warned Long Island’s Nassau County to scrap a cooperation agreement with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as a state law aimed at limiting help for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign goes into effect.

The state’s newly created Office of Immigrant Trust whipped off letters to 12 counties, including Nassau, to formally end their so-called 287(g) agreements with the feds and also stop allowing local jails to be used to detain suspected undocumented immigrants.

The letter gives the counties until Aug. 25 to revoke the agreements in line with the law that Hochul signed on May 27.

“We will not tolerate the diversion of local resources for federal civil immigration enforcement at the expense of public safety,” Hochul said in a statement. “That is why we passed a commonsense set of laws standing up against federal overreach.”

The move against Nassau could make Trump’s immigration crackdown a bigger issue in the fall election because Hochul’s main challenger is Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Blakeman signed the agreement with Trump’s Department of Homeland Security earlier this year allowing Nassau cops to question people about their immigration status and detain suspects. It allows some local law enforcement officials to act as deputized ICE agents.

Blakeman said he would formally respond to the letter by Aug. 14.

“Kathy Hochul is hell-bent on making the communities of New York State less safe,” Blakeman said. “Shame on her.”

Critics say local law enforcement should not be involved in enforcing federal immigration laws and should instead focus on local crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued New York State to block the new law, which also bars officers from wearing masks, claiming it unconstitutionally interferes with federal immigration enforcement.

“New York’s anti-law enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand,” said U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in a news release.

Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The nationwide operation has led to several killings by ICE agents seeking to question suspected undocumented immigrants, including a legal resident from Colombia who was shot this month during a traffic stop in Maine and a similar shooting of a Mexican man in Houston.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin last week briefly ordered immigration authorities to halt all traffic stops but Trump quickly reversed that policy.

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