Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman regularly commands\u00a0public\u00a0attention by echoing President Donald Trump\u2019s talking points. But his latest effort to be the president\u2019s \u201cmini-me\u201d on “border” protection\u00a0has an almost comical edge.<\/p>\n
Guarding borders has practical meaning when we\u2019re talking about big numbers of migrants from Central America crossing illegally into the United States.\u00a0It means very little when it comes to migrating from Bellerose in Queens to Bellerose in Nassau, or\u00a0getting around the Cross Island Parkway, which one denizen calls the \u201cGreat Wall\u201d along the border.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless Blakeman, who\u00a0sounds\u00a0like he\u2019s running for governor after winning a second term last month, has timed rather mundane and detail-free talk\u00a0about installing surveillance technology along his county\u2019s border with New York City in tandem with the coming mayoral administration of Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are doing everything necessary to make sure that Nassau County is safe,\u201d Blakeman told Fox News. Last month, before the election, Blakeman warned darkly that city and county law enforcement officials\u00a0\u201care in joint investigations, and the integrity of those investigations may be compromised with a Mamdani administration, so I think it\u2019s a danger to the whole region if he\u2019s elected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever message that was\u00a0supposed to send, some of the technology Blakeman cited, such as license plate readers, is already\u00a0deployed near the Queens-Nassau border. The only controversial part of his publicity pitch might be Blakeman\u2019s mention of using facial-recognition technology, which raises the hackles of civil libertarians.<\/p>\n
Blakeman expressed a business interest in border technology before. In 2017, while an attorney in private practice, he was among those pushing for solar panels atop Trump\u2019s proposed border wall to help fund the project. When interviewed about this on Fox Business News back then, Blakeman was identified as a principal in Sustainable Technology LLC.<\/p>\n
Borders aside, Blakeman has been on social media inviting\u00a0residents of the Upper East Side of Manhattan\u00a0who expressed concern about safety and schools under Mamdani to move to Nassau County.<\/p>\n
But tension with the city, no matter who\u2019s mayor, could get dicey for Blakeman in a statewide race. Any Republican candidate for governor is expected\u00a0to need at least a third of the vote from the five boroughs to offset the Democrats\u2019 advantages. If Long Island\u2019s Lee Zeldin, the last GOP candidate against Gov. Kathy Hochul, had done better in the city, he might have won\u00a0in 2022.<\/p>\n
Mamdani, a democratic socialist deeply critical of Israel, is a logical target for both Blakeman, a potential candidate, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, who\u2019s already running.\u00a0After a surprisingly friendly Oval Office appearance with the mayor-elect, however, Trump openly rejected Stefanik\u2019s labeling Mamdani a \u201cjihadist.\u201d<\/p>\n
The premise has been widely accepted that the preferred GOP nominee against Hochul will be up to Trump. His diplomatic dance with Mamdani might not indicate how he\u2019s leaning. Although Stefanik has lined up support from most county committees across the state, Blakeman is seen on Long Island, a Republican stronghold, as helping to\u00a0boost Republican congressional candidates, next year\u2019s most crucial sweepstakes.<\/p>\n
Whoever sits in Albany\u2019s Executive Mansion in 2027, it\u2019s a good bet that\u00a0you\u2019ll be free to travel without a visa stamp\u00a0between Far Rockaway and Lawrence. Or between Little Neck and Lake Success. Or across other points where Queens and Nassau meet.<\/p>\n
Columnist Dan Janison’s opinions are his own.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tDan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman regularly commands\u00a0public\u00a0attention by echoing President Donald Trump\u2019s talking points. But his latest effort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[17976,9,24,17975,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-60560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-column","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newsday","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-queens","14":"tag-queens-headlines","15":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60560","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=60560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}