Bruce Blakeman, the chief executive of Nassau County, New York, has agreed to abide by the state’s new law banning cooperation with ICE, but he also announced that his county is joining a lawsuit to scuttle the law.
New York Democrats pushed through a bill banning state law enforcement agencies from entering into the federal 287(g) program that allows them to cooperate with Immigration enforcement, but 15 counties have since launched a lawsuit to have the law shut down.
Early this month, two New York counties that had entered into the ICE co-op program joined forces to sue the state over the law, called the Local Crimes, Local Cop Act, which went into effect on August 25. The act summarily cancelled the contracts the counties had signed with ICE, and local officials are furious that state Democrats decided they had the power and position to interfere in local police decisions and policies.
Since then, 15 New York sheriffs joined the lawsuit to scuttle the new state law.
However, one high profile county official had been temporarily silent over the lawsuit, the New York Post reported.
Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running for governor against incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, strenuously opposed the Local Crimes, Local Cop Act, but he had resisted mentioning exactly what his county would do about the newly implemented law.
Now, he is finally speaking out and confirming what his county will do in response.
Blakeman now says that his county will reluctantly void its contract with ICE, but he added he is also joining the lawsuit to put an end to the law that forced him to do so.
“This is one of the saddest days of my life as county executive,” he said of having to end his contract with ICE. He added that while he would “abide by the technicalities of the law,” he also intends to keep working with ICE where he is able.
“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,” he added.
The Republican has praised the ICE 287(g) program in the past, saying that his county has taken a serious bite out of crime by working with ICE.
“We got rid of 2,000 illegal migrants with criminal records in Nassau County without raiding a church, a school, a daycare center, a hospital, because we cooperated with ICE,” Blakeman recently said.
Blakeman also railed against Hochul and said her law will make New Yorkers less safe.
“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? Where do you want those illegal migrants with criminal records to live? You want them back in New York? We say no!” he said at a recent campaign rally.
“This law has made New York state more dangerous,” he also said.
“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 — it will be blood on their hands,” he railed.
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