New York's Ban on Local ICE Partnerships Takes Effect. Fifteen Sheriffs Are Suing

New York's ban on local police cooperating with ICE is now law, not a proposal. The Local Cops, Local Crimes Act took effect Tuesday, August 25, after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed it back in May, according to CBS News and Fox News.

The law bans state and local law enforcement agencies from entering or keeping 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Those agreements let trained local officers perform specific federal civil immigration duties under ICE supervision. New York had 12 such agreements in place before Attorney General Letitia James sent letters last month telling those agencies to unwind them by August 25, according to westfaironline.

Hochul made her position plain in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday. "I just banned it," she said. "It's against the law now in the state of New York to have these agreements." She framed the move as keeping local cops on local crime. "We need local cops hunting down criminals, not kindergartners. Breaking up drug rings, not breaking up families. Arresting gun runners, not grandmas," she said, according to Fox News and CBS News.

A federal court already denied the U.S. Department of Justice's request for a preliminary injunction to block the law, according to westfaironline. That hasn't stopped the fight. Fifteen county sheriffs are challenging the law in federal court, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson who spoke to Fox News Digital.

DHS says the ban will put more federal agents on New York streets, not fewer

DHS's argument is straightforward: block local cooperation, and Washington sends more of its own people. "When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with DHS, our law enforcement officers have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities," the DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

DHS also pointed to five specific New York cases it says prove the point: noncitizens who remained at large or were released despite ICE detainers, following arrests or convictions involving attempted murder, rape, assault, weapons charges or child endangerment. ICE says it eventually took all five into custody, and removed one to Mexico.

Hochul's office pushed back hard on that framing in a statement to Fox News Digital. "You don't make New York State safer by co-opting local law enforcement to conduct civil immigration enforcement that targets families, children and hardworking individuals," a spokesperson said, adding that "a federal court has already upheld New York's Local Cops, Local Crimes Act."

DHS names five specific cases as evidence of harm. Hochul's office disputes DHS's characterization but doesn't rebut the specific cases point by point in the material available. Both claims are now part of the public record and neither has been independently adjudicated.

Two counties are holding out, and one is picking a very public fight

Sixty of New York's 62 counties have complied, according to CBS News. Two haven't: Nassau County, run by Republican Bruce Blakeman, and one other. Blakeman also happens to be Hochul's Republican challenger in this year's governor's race, which makes this fight as much campaign trail as courtroom.

Hochul didn't mince words about it. "No county executive should think that they are above the law in the state of New York," she said, according to CBS News.

Blakeman hasn't backed down. Appearing alongside President Trump, he defended keeping Nassau's ICE agreement, saying it removed roughly 2,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records from the county. "Kathy Hochul, where do you want those guns? What neighborhood do you want to destroy? Where do you want those drugs? What community do you want to destroy?" Blakeman said. "Where do you want those illegal immigrants with criminal records to live? You want it back in New York? We say no."

Within minutes of Hochul's warning, James issued subpoenas to the sheriff's offices in Broome, Steuben, Nassau and Rensselaer counties, plus the Nassau County Police Department, according to CBS News. Broome's sheriff's office said it's already in compliance. A spokesperson for James's office said if the remaining agencies don't comply, the next step is a civil suit.

The backdrop: ICE enforcement is at record levels

ICE arrests hit nearly 50,000 nationally last month, a 70% jump from February, according to CBS News, in the wake of two fatal shootings in Minnesota that sparked protests. Border czar Tom Homan has vowed to "flood" New York with ICE agents regardless of what Albany does, according to Fox News.

Whether that flood actually reduces or increases public safety incidents in New York is an empirical question nobody in this dispute has settled with data yet. Nassau County's subpoena fight and the sheriffs' federal lawsuit are both moving through the courts now, and Blakeman's defiance is set to become a central flashpoint in his race against Hochul this fall.