New York is closing in on a budget deal that would impose the state's broadest restrictions to date on local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, barring counties from renting jail space for civil immigration detention, voiding formal 287(g) partnerships and restrict when on-duty federal immigration agents can wear masks.
Democratic State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie of the Bronx told reporters Wednesday that roughly 95% of the package was agreed upon, with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and top legislative Democrats racing to close it nearly a month after the April 1 deadline.
The package builds on the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act that Hochul unveiled Jan. 30, which targeted formal cooperation agreements that deputize county officers to act as ICE agents.
Lawmakers have since pushed it wider.
Provisions now in consensus would bar counties from contracting with ICE to hold civil detainees in local jails, void 287(g) partnerships and restrict on-duty immigration agents from concealing their faces, a measure championed by Democratic state Sen. Patricia Fahy of Albany.
The package would also expand "sensitive locations" shielded from warrantless ICE entry, adding state and local government property such as schools and libraries, with an opt-in for private sites.
The fight that nearly derailed the talks was narrower.
Hochul had pressed for a "probable cause" exception letting local police share information with ICE when they suspected a crime.
After pushback from advocates and assembly Democrats, that language was dropped.
A successor proposal tying cooperation to "criminal investigations" was also stripped from the pending bill, according to people briefed on the negotiations.
"I think the center of gravity might be in that direction now, but I don't think it's been final, final," Heastie said Wednesday.
Hochul has framed the package as a check on aggressive federal enforcement.
"There are people suffering right now because of the out-of-control ICE agents who are taking them literally from their work sites," she told reporters Tuesday, saying those swept up are "not the worst of the worst" the administration had promised to target.
Meanwhile, some sheriffs are resisting.
About a dozen uniformed sheriffs went to the Capitol on Tuesday, and the New York State Sheriffs' Association said in a statement this week that the proposed limits would erode the interagency cooperation built up after the 9/11 attacks and harm public safety beyond immigration enforcement.
Broome County Sheriff Fred Akshar, a Republican and former state senator, said the sheriffs were "drawing a line in the sand." State Sen. Pat Gallivan, a Republican and former Erie County sheriff, said restricting cooperation would jeopardize public safety.
The political stakes run through this year's gubernatorial race.
Nassau County, run by Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor, has booked more than 1,000 ICE detainees since October, the most in New York, under contracts that would be voided.
Blakeman called the proposed restrictions "more lunatic insanity from the left."
Hochul, however, has said federal partnerships on serious crime, including those with the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, would continue.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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