Fifteen New York sheriffs have sued Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James over a new state law that forbids local police from working with ICE. These are independently elected officers who know their counties. They refuse to ignore federal immigration enforcement sitting in their own jails.
The Local Cops, Local Crimes Act took effect this week. It strips sheriffs of tools Congress already authorized, including 287(g) partnerships that let trained local officers identify and process removable aliens already in custody on criminal charges. When local lawmen cannot hand over criminal illegal immigrants at the jail door, those offenders walk back onto the same streets the sheriffs were hired to protect. That is not theory. That is the practical result of Albany’s policy.
The sheriffs argue the law invades their authority as constitutional officers, conflicts with federal statute, and substitutes a sanctuary agenda for public-safety judgment. Rensselaer County Sheriff Kyle Bourgault is leading the case. Fourteen other county sheriffs joined him in federal court. They are not asking to roam neighborhoods looking for civil violations. They are asking to keep a lawful, limited partnership that applies to people already booked for crimes.
I stand with the sheriffs. They swore an oath to their communities, not to a policy written in Albany and City Hall. Hochul has told holdouts to comply or face the state. The sheriffs answered in court. Public safety is not optional, and neither is enforcing the law that Congress wrote. Counties should not be forced to release criminal offenders simply because the state prefers not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The people who live with the consequences of that choice deserve better.
