Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman yielded Wednesday to a state law that dissolves his formal partnership with federal immigration authorities, backing down from a legal clash with his foe in the governor’s race, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Blakeman said at a news conference that he would still instruct police officers to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers whenever possible. And he said he will join a lawsuit filed by 15 county sheriffs that challenges provisions of the state law that took effect this week.
“This law is written in the blood of victims past, present and future,” he said. “I am a law-and-order county executive. I believe in the rule of law, even when it’s a bad law — and this is a very, very bad and dangerous law.”
The state law bans formal 287(g) cooperation agreements between local police and ICE that allow local officers to conduct immigration enforcement, including detaining undocumented immigrants and accessing federal databases.
While some municipalities like New York City have sanctuary laws that restrict this coordination, police in other areas proactively cooperate with ICE. Thirteen jurisdictions had formal cooperation agreements with ICE when the state ban was enacted in May.
The new statute also prohibits local jails from holding people in custody for ICE. Nassau County has incarcerated more than 1,000 people at its East Meadow jail since October of last year, the most of any New York county.
Hochul and other supporters of the new law say it reins in aggressive enforcement tactics by ICE that have terrorized immigrants. They say the law allows local police officers to focus on solving local crimes.
Hochul told reporters at the State Fair outside Syracuse that Republicans are pushing a false narrative that undocumented immigrants are criminals. She said major crimes have decreased.
“We have made dramatic progress. We didn't need any 287(g) agreements,” the governor said. “In fact, I think they're in the way of making progress because I want local police using local taxpayer dollars to focus on catching local criminals.”
A Hochul spokesperson didn’t immediately comment on Blakeman’s announcement. Nassau and Rensselaer counties on Tuesday received letters from Attorney General Letitia James demanding they provide documents regarding their compliance with the new law.
Rensselaer County Sheriff Kyle Bourgault is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the new state law. The county, across the Hudson River from Albany, coordinates with ICE as people are booked into the county jail.
“This law is an intrusion on the constitutional office of the sheriff,” said Mateo Forero, a lawyer for FAIR, a national group that favors tight restrictions on immigration and is representing Bourgault and the other sheriffs.
Hochul and James said in a statement that the suit is “a frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars.” A federal judge earlier this month issued a preliminary ruling that rejected a separate Trump administration challenge to the state’s ban on cooperation agreements.
ICE data shows that most immigrants who are detained haven't been convicted of crimes. Immigrant advocates in New York say people with ongoing asylum cases are being arrested during traffic stops and at scheduled check-ins.
Newsday reported that between February 2025 and March 2026, 147 immigrants detained at the Nassau County jail had prior convictions for violent crimes. That's less than 5% of the immigrants who were arrested.
But Blakeman highlighted several instances in which police had arrested undocumented immigrants for various offenses who might otherwise have been released pending trial if they weren’t turned over to ICE.
Hochul said Tuesday that she doesn’t want immigrants who are accused of crimes to be turned over to federal immigration authorities until after they are tried on state charges — even if that means they are released pending trial.
Blakeman said that would make communities less safe.
“Going forward, every murder, every rape, every robbery, every burglary, every drug overdose committed by an illegal migrant is on the hands of Kathy Hochul and the Democrats in our state legislature,” Blakeman said. “It will be blood on their hands.”
