How two NY counties are ignoring Hochul and helping ICE deport migrant criminals
Two Venezuelan migrants, reputedly members of the Tren de Aragua gang, were released without bail last week after the Queens District Attorney’s Office reduced their felony gun and drug charges to lesser offenses.They should have been on the next flight to Caracas, not walking the streets of New York.Blame the city and state’s sanctuary laws, which limit cooperation with President Trump’s immigration-enforcement efforts to deport criminal aliens.But if Gov.Kathy Hochul, state Democrats and progressive prosecutors won’t play ball with the president and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two New York counties will.Rensselaer County, just east of Albany, has been cooperating with federal partners to remove migrant criminals since 2018, when County Executive Steve McLaughlin joined ICE’s 287(g) program.The program trains local sheriff’s deputies in immigration law, enabling them to interview inmates regarding their status.If they determine a suspect is in the US illegally, they can file a detainer and hand the individual over to ICE for deportation proceedings.Despite Rensselaer County’s relatively small population, officials have encountered hundreds of dangerous, unlawfully present individuals in the county jail — proving that even in less populated areas, close cooperation with ICE is a cost-effective means of protecting public safety.By allowing ICE agents to take these offenders into custody directly from jail, rather than tracking them down after release, the program also significantly reduces risks to state and local law-enforcement officers.This month Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, too, signed on to 287(g).
He set aside 50 dedicated jail cells for criminal migrants and deputized 10 specialized Nassau County detectives with the authority to make immigration arrests outside jail facilities.To justify these measures, Blakeman pointed to serious crimes committed by illegal migrants in Nassau, including a Honduran national who raped a youn...