ALBANY – New York is set to pass its most extreme sanctuary policies yet – as Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats hone in on a deal that could impose sweeping bans on cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) confirmed “95%” of an anti-ICE immigration package has been agreed upon between Hochul and state legislators as part of ongoing state budget talks – including etching New York’s first statewide sanctuary law restricting how law enforcement can interact with immigration authorities.
“I think we all want to deal with the aggressiveness, or the over-aggressiveness, let’s say, of ICE. But we also understand that there should always be due process,” Heastie told reporters Wednesday.
Narrow, but still crucial, details about how the law would function are still being hammered out.
Hochul recently revealed that she had agreed with the legislature’s request to ramp up her initial anti-ICE proposal, which she had released in January amid heightened fury against President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
“I want to say that ICE has no reason to be involved in any civil enforcement,” Hochul said last week.
Hochul’s original proposal had included:
- Banning local governments, like Nassau County, from signing formal “287-g” agreements with ICE to deputize officers and keep detainees in local jails on federal immigration charges.
- An experimental new legal tool aimed at giving New Yorkers the ability to sue federal agents in state court for a violation of their constitutional rights.
- Restricting access to ICE from “sensitive” locations like schools, hospitals and churches.
Since then, the legislature has largely bullied the governor into adding:
- Explicit “sanctuary” protections barring local law enforcement from communicating with federal immigration authorities unless they suspect there’s probable cause someone committed a misdemeanor or felony.
- Many new additional “sensitive” locations to her list, including virtually all public spaces like parks and allowing private businesses to refuse entry to federal agents.
- Barring ICE agents from wearing masks.
Albany Dems, however, quickly panned the part of Hochul’s plan allowing local cops to contact ICE in cases with probable cause — and it appears she might be backing down.
“That definitely has been out,” Heastie said Wednesday.
Critics — including the elected sheriffs she wants to restrict from working with ICE — have blasted Hochul for caving to the left, claiming she hasn’t engaged with them in crafting her proposal.
“The proposed ban on communicating or cooperating with an important unit of federal law enforcement would be a huge step backward and would be detrimental to the safety of the public in areas way beyond immigration issues,” the New York State Sheriffs’ Association wrote in a statement this week.
Turning New York’s sanctuary policy into law could create confusing grey areas and would harm the progress made after the 9/11 terror attacks to encourage branches of law enforcement to be less “siloed” and collaborate more, critics argued.
Hochul still maintains that federal law enforcement will still be able to go after hardcore criminals like human traffickers and drug rings.
“We’ll work with DEA. We’ll work with FBI. We always have,” she stressed.