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Democrat Bill Is Opposed By Republicans & Local Law Enforcement; Vote On Scheduling a Public Hearing Was Tabled
By Tina Traster
More than 220 people filled the seats at the Rockland County Legislature Tuesday night, with most urging lawmakers to pass a bill that would curtail the way in which county employees cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Passionate speeches flowed from legislators, particularly Chair Jay Hood (D-Haverstraw), and from nearly 40 people who were given a chance to speak.
About 200 people were left outside in the cold because the legislative chamber was too small to handle the crowd.
“This is a very emotional issue,” said Hood. “Things are happening in Minnesota, I don’t like what I see,” adding that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and other federal agents who’ve been sent to arrest and detain immigrants, are untrained, wearing masks, and killing people, including Americans.
Five Rockland County lawmakers, including Legislator Beth Davidson (D-Nyack, Clarkstown) who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, introduced the “Safety and Dignity For All Act,” Tuesday night at the Rockland County Legislature. The co-sponsors are Majority Leader Alden Wolfe (D-Ramapo), Deputy Majority Leader Dana Stilley (D-Orangetown), Public Safety Committee Chair Paul Cleary (D-Haverstraw) and Legislator Jesse Malowitz (D-Suffern). The bill is aimed at protecting “our immigrant neighbors and law-abiding protesters alike as ICE continues to ramp up its activities.” Rockland County Democrats said they’ll use their majority to protect residents from perceived excesses of immigration enforcement, days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her plan to block state and local police from cooperating with ICE on civil operations.
The fierce partisan dueling over the proposed bill may become moot if Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature follow through on plans to pass laws to inhibit federal immigration efforts in New York.
Saying there was a “lot of misinformation” about the bill, and adding that many were stirring the pot and erroneously saying Rockland would be a “sanctuary” county, Hood said the legislature had agreed to table the vote to schedule a public hearing on the proposal. The public hearing was supposed to take place on March 4th. He conceded that many had not yet seen a draft of the proposed bill, including members of the public, though several times during public comments speakers urged him to put the vote back on the agenda.
The Rockland County proposal is modeled after a similar law passed in Westchester County eight years ago. The Westchester Immigrant Protection Act largely confines cooperation with immigration enforcement to criminal cases and instances when a judicial warrant is issued. It applies to the county’s public safety, corrections and probation departments — not to local municipal police departments in Westchester. The bill requires a judicial warrant for detention, transfer, or custody holds beyond lawful release, preserves cooperation in criminal investigations, including violent crimes, terrorism and felony offenses, clarifies when county resources and data may be used, limits voluntary civil immigration enforcement, and protects confidential and non-public information being collected.
“Take the criminals,” said Hood, who represents the Village of West Haverstraw and the Village of Haverstraw. “The people I know are hardworking people who’ve come here for a better life.”
He beseeched his colleagues in Washington, DC to “make the process easier,” adding that back in the day our forebears came to the United States and became citizens by “showing up” at Ellis Island.
Republican members of the Rockland County Legislature issued a joint statement opposing the proposed law. “This legislation prioritizes ideology over safety, weakens cooperation between levels of government, and places unnecessary financial and security burdens on our community. Ultimately, sanctuary counties fail the most basic responsibility of government: protecting the public. No political statement is worth compromising safety, accountability, or the rule of law.”
Fewer than a handful of attendees spoke against the bill, though Legislator Lon Hofstein (R-New City) spoke for the party at large when he said legislators should leave these decisions to Rockland County law enforcement, who have issued statements opposing the proposal.
Amongst the 40 speakers, only a small handful spoke in opposition of the bill. Daniel Nagle gave moving testimony about the April 29th, 2005 rape and murder of his wife Mary Nagle by an “illegal alien.” “This changed my life for myself and my two young children who never saw their mother again. This man who killed my wife did other crimes, he was lost in our country, it can happen to your family.”
Most of those who gave testimony spoke of the graphic violence and abuse from Minneapolis and other American cities that have filled television screens and social media threads since the Trump administration’s roundup and deportation of immigrants began. They implored the legislature to keep ICE at bay, given the tactics the world has seen via video protesters have taken.
“I want this room to remember this,” said Nana Kwame Adjei -Brenyah. “History honors compassion. I saw a certain letter written by the Police Chiefs Association. And I’d like to remind the room that civil rights activists were beaten and jailed by police officers, who I am sure on some level believed they were doing the right thing. The law often lags behind the conviction of principled people. To the people in this room today, do you feel aligned with that core tenet? Are you here because of compassion or are you here because you are afraid?”
Police Chiefs Association of Rockland County, Rockland County PBA, Town of Haverstraw PBA, and Town of Ramapo PBA released a “Statement on Proposed Immigration Protection Act” by the Rockland Legislature to limit or bar county law enforcement and other workers from cooperating with federal immigration officials, saying the proposed legislation would restrict or prohibit cooperation between a local law enforcement agency in Rockland County and federal law enforcement partners, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In a prepared statement, they wrote: “Law enforcement agencies throughout Rockland County have a long-standing history of working collaboratively with one another and with our partners at the county, state, and federal levels. This coordinated approach has been essential to effective policing and has played a significant role in maintaining public safety across our communities. As a county, Rockland has benefited from this cooperation and, as a result, has avoided many of the challenges experienced in other municipalities across the country.”
“The ability for local law enforcement to coordinate with all appropriate partners, without unnecessary restrictions, allows incidents to be handled responsibly and in a manner that prioritizes both public safety and community trust. The proposed legislation, if enacted, risks disrupting effective and long-established partnerships that support officer safety and the successful resolution of complex incidents that often cross municipal and jurisdictional boundaries. Limiting lawful cooperation between agencies may result in unintended consequences that negatively impact public safety throughout Rockland County.”
Speaker after speaker spoke about fear traumatizing immigrant communities leaving children afraid to go to school and parents too hesitant to go out and buy groceries. At least a couple of speakers read lists of the names of people ICE has killed, including the two most high profile homicides of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“I will say this plainly. ICE and the people who support them are motivated by hatred. It doesn’t get any more complicated than that,” said James McCallum of Haverstraw. “The worst part of it all — this hatred has been manufactured and taught to them by those in power. Those in this room who give their unwavering support to ICE, to the DOJ, to the United State government, have been fed a false promise that when these people go away, the problems will magically subside. And this lie in not new. We ‘ve seen this throughout history.”
Hood, who later weighed in, echoed this sentiment with a be-careful-what-you-wish-for warning. The Rockland economy, like so many communities, runs on the labor, participation and support of the immigrant community.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is seeking to ban eight counties and three municipalities from continuing with their agreements to assist the federal government with immigration enforcement, including housing migrants facing deportation in local jails. The governor is working to get a statewide bill passed to thwart local law enforcement agencies from renewing or entering into agreements with ICE to aid in identifying, detaining or transferring immigrations to the federal agency.
Hochul said her proposal would not prohibit local agencies from working with federal officers to pursue immigrants accused of violent crimes. The state will also continue transferring immigrants convicted of crimes to the federal government. Her proposals would bar federal agents from entering homes, schools, hospitals, or houses of worship without a judicial warrant, and would create a private right of action for people whose constitutional rights are violated, citing the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota as the catalyst for expanding those protections.
The counties with law enforcement agencies that hold agreements with the federal government are Nassau, Cattaraugus, Madison, Niagara, Rensselaer, Otsego, Steuben and Broome.
The agreements allow local law enforcement to be deputized to assist the federal government on immigration matters as part of their regular duties. They can also allow the federal government to hold immigrants in county jails, or to be alerted when someone who may be in the country unlawfully is about to be released from local or state custody.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that our law enforcement has enough on their hands and our (district attorneys) have enough to do without turning into deputized ICE agents,” Hochul has said.
Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie has said Democrats in his chamber would take Hochul’s proposal under consideration as they discuss a broader legislative effort on immigrant protections, including a bill called “New York For All,” which would broadly prevent state and local resources from being used to aid federal immigration efforts and protect immigrants from arrest without a judicial warrant. It would also prohibit public employees at both the state and local level from inquiring about a person’s immigration status or sharing that information with the federal government if it’s inferred or unintentionally obtained.
Democrats are also considering several other bills related to federal immigration enforcement, including legislation to prohibit federal officers from concealing their identity and create a public dashboard to track their activity.
Lily Greenberg, a poet and Nyack resident, said immigrants are an asset to the community, bringing “rich cultural depth and texture” to the arts and to places they endeavor to make home.
“We are in a humanitarian crisis,” she said. “What’s happening is affecting the identity of the country.” She urged the legislature to put the vote back on the agenda. “Act swiftly. Clear and concise. There’s no confusion about what it is you are for. We are watching and will hold you accountable.”
The vote was not put back on the agenda.
