This week, Gov. Hochul was one of a panel of three Democratic governors called before the farce that is the current House Committee on Oversight to answer questions about their states’ so-called sanctuary policies, where GOP lawmakers raked them over the coals for noncooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
So what does “cooperation” look like? In March, a couple in the Schenectady suburb of Rotterdam were arrested for allegedly shoplifting about $160 in food from a grocery store, a charge that would typically have only resulted in a desk appearance ticket.
Instead, citing a lack of proper identification, local police got in touch with ICE, which took the couple into custody under the draconian new federal Laken Riley Act — which mandates detention of undocumented people who are even accused of certain crimes, including low-level shoplifting — leaving behind their three-year-old daughter.
While Hochul’s executive order bars the State Police from cooperating with immigration enforcement, the same isn’t true for the state’s myriad local cops, which have a patchwork of requirements; NYC has its own prohibitions but Rotterdam, clearly, does not. Legislative leaders and Hochul should consider a statewide clarification that any New York officials cannot cooperate with ICE except in very specific circumstances like the presentation of a judicial warrant and get rid of the confusing assortment of rules.
While the federal government, not the state, regulates immigration, how should state and local personnel and resources be utilized for that end? If the Trump administration wants to go after nonviolent and even noncriminal day laborers and nannies, why should New York be assisting in the effort? Doing so misallocates local resources while giving local communities reason to distrust the police and other local authorities.
Are other immigrants in Rotterdam going to continue cooperating on police investigations or reporting crimes having now heard that the cops actively chose to bring in ICE after this minor arrest?
We understand the argument that state officials do not want people convicted of serious crimes to avoid some of the consequences for that conduct, including potentially losing status or being slated for deportation.
Nonetheless, this is quite simply not local police’s mandate nor responsibility, and in cases where some level of cooperation does make sense in the interest of public safety on serious and dangerous felonies, immigration authorities can go and get a judicial warrant, which would allow this cooperation. The fact that they so rarely possess such a warrant is just an indicator of the fact that they can’t often convince a judge it’s worth it.
The Trump administration’s disinterest in actual public safety was demonstrated yet again in a lawsuit filed the same day that Hochul was testifying challenging a New York State policy prohibiting ICE arrests in courthouses.
Courthouses are places where everyone can ostensibly go to get justice for themselves, or, if they are accused of crimes, exercise the fundamental right to due process, which the Constitution guarantees to all regardless of immigration status (which did not even exist as a concept when these rights were enshrined).
The DOJ suit is explicitly an effort by the Trumpers to interfere in the state’s justice system, because they do not actually care about the application of justice and the law. State leaders should go above and beyond to safeguard it, in the interest of public safety.
