BATH, N.Y. \u2014 A dozen law enforcement agencies across New York have weeks to end agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under a state law passed this spring. One of those agencies is in the Southern Tier, where a local sheriff is defending the partnership.<\/p>\n
The Steuben County Sheriff\u2019s Office is one of 12 New York law enforcement agencies to receive a letter late last week from state Attorney General Letitia\u00a0James, ordering them to cut ties with ICE.<\/p>\n
Last summer, Steuben County lawmakers passed legislation allowing the local sheriff\u2019s office to work with ICE. The agreements let ICE staff serve immigration warrants to people lacking legal status inside the county jail, while sending sheriff’s department employees along on any ICE-related activity in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe jumped on board from the perspective that the more we worked together, the less likely that vehicle stops are going to happen by unmarked vehicles,\u201d said Sheriff James Allard. \u201cAnd the likelihood of everything being on body cam if one of our deputies is there is going to happen. So from our perspective, working with them in partnership makes all of us in Steuben County safer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late last week, the Steuben County Sheriff\u2019s Office and 11 other New York agencies received letters from the state AG\u2019s office that the agreement violated a state law passed in May, prohibiting local police agencies from assisting ICE with civil immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Federal immigration policy has come under fire for several high-profile incidents, including shootings involving ICE agents. New York\u2019s \u201cLocal Cops, Local Crimes Act\u201d was passed in response to that \u2014 \u00a0prompting this response from the Department of Homeland Security:<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Hochul\u2019s policies of not cooperating with ICE put New Yorkers in danger. 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,\u201d said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is an unconstitutional law,\u201d said Allard.<\/p>\n
The sheriff says he and local lawmakers are looking into exactly what the attorney general\u2019s letter means. Allard says agreements with ICE to house inmates before arraignment, as well as a similar longtime deal with the U.S. Marshals Service, brought $130,000 into Steuben County coffers in the first quarter of this year alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t want to do something that’s going to not be supported entirely by the county,\u201d said Allard. \u201cBut at the same time, my own personal beliefs is that it’s a bad law. It makes us less safe, and it puts people in jeopardy.”<\/p>\n
Allard says he’s waiting on the Steuben County Legislature for guidance on how best to proceed. He suspects the issue will ultimately be settled in the courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BATH, N.Y. \u2014 A dozen law enforcement agencies across New York have weeks to end agreements with U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2301,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,308,115,4274,200],"class_list":["post-307088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-immigration","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-public-safety","tag-rochester","tag-seth-voorhees","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}