{"id":330641,"date":"2026-08-27T00:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/330641\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T00:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T00:16:08","slug":"blakeman-on-ice-agreements-data-centers-and-polling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/330641\/","title":{"rendered":"Blakeman on ICE agreements, data centers and polling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman announced Wednesday that his sheriff\u2019s office will abide by a new law<\/a> passed by Democrats in Albany that went into effect on Tuesday. The law bars 287(g) agreements between\u00a0U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The Nassau County Sheriff\u2019s Office will abide by the law for now, in spite of Blakeman\u2019s criticism of it. However, the county will also be filing a complaint that piggybacks on the federal lawsuit filed by Rensselaer County, which challenges the law, Blakeman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are joining the Rensselaer County lawsuit, but we\u2019re in a different situation than the other sheriffs. My sheriff is appointed, so we are joining them with a separate complaint that we indicated today, that we would work with them to try and overturn this really bad, dangerous law,\u201d Blakeman told Capital Tonight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Blakeman, the law was \u201cwritten with the blood of the victims of illegal migrants past, present and future,\u201d it \u201cmakes us less safe\u201d and was \u201cdone for political purposes.\u201d He also stated that there were no deaths at the hands of ICE in Nassau County.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hochul campaign pushed back on that assertion, arguing that an ICE detainee was found dead<\/a> in his Nassau County cell in 2025.<\/p>\n

Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki told Capital Tonight in an emailed statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cShoulder to shoulder with ICE, Bruce Blakeman challenged the governor to \u2018name one\u2019 atrocity committed by ICE \u2013 the same Bruce Blakeman who said Renee Good\u2019s death \u2018seemed justified\u2019 and couldn\u2019t say whether Alex Pretti deserved to die. This is all part of a pattern: Bruce Blakeman only wants what Trump wants, and New Yorkers pay the price.”<\/p>\n

While Blakeman touts his link to President Donald Trump, as well as the president\u2019s endorsement, he doesn\u2019t appear to want to be put in the position of defending the president\u2019s actions. This became clear when he was asked about Canadian tariffs, which are deeply unpopular along the New York state border with Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, you can talk about federal issues all you want, but I\u2019m running for governor,\u201d Blakeman said.<\/p>\n

In the interview with Capital Tonight, Blakeman also discussed his position on data centers, saying that he dealt differently with them in Nassau County than Hochul by working with data centers and requiring them to install water circulation systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also said his poll numbers<\/a> are tightening up, citing his own internal polling as well as a recent poll from the firm co\/efficient.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just internal polling. An independent pollster co\/efficient, which is recognized by RealClearPolitics, has posted that I\u2019m within six points, excuse me, four points. My internal polling had me within six,\u201d he said. \u201cI like their poll a little better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blakeman also criticized the latest Siena poll,<\/a> which had him within 10 points of the incumbent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also claimed that the Siena poll is funded by New York state, which is not true. According to Steve Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena Research Institute, the Siena poll is funded by ReconMR under a licensing agreement between Siena University and ReconMR. No state money funds the Siena Research Institute poll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman announced Wednesday that his sheriff\u2019s office will abide by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[206,202,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,108,63,87,201,200],"class_list":["post-330641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-capital-tonight-interviews","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-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-susan-arbetter","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330641","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=330641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}