Nassau County police to team up with ICE to arrest and deport immigrants accused of crimes

Nassau County is authorizing 10 of its police detectives to work with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and deport immigrants accused of a crime, officials announced Tuesday.

Nassau police will detain arrested immigrants accused of a crime in jail for 72 hours, then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will either jail them in a federal detainment facility or deport them, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at a news conference Tuesday. 

"When I first took office, I announced that Nassau County would not be a sanctuary county. ... We enforce not only the local laws, the state laws but also the federal laws," he said.

Blakeman’s move, mirroring a similar effort in Texas, relies on a 1996 federal provision that gives ICE the authority to "delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions." Rensselaer County is the first in New York to apply the program, according to a 2020 memo from ICE.

"It’s been a very frustrating four years, and now you see a renewed enthusiasm among our federal, state and local law enforcement partners to finally be able to enforce the law," he said.

The Nassau County Police Department’s cooperation with ICE is not new, according to Commissioner Patrick Ryder. But under the new program, police "will be notifying ICE" to come pick up people in the country illegally arrested even for low-level crimes who would normally be released with a ticket, Ryder said Tuesday. Ryder also warned those hanging with immigrants subject to arrest will also be detained. 

"If there are people in those targeted enforcements that are illegally in that house with that MS- 13 gangbanger and their name was checked, yes we will be detaining them along with ICE," Ryder said.

If an ICE officer is not immediately available to detain the person, the newly appointed detectives will jail them until ICE arrives, according to Ryder.

The New York Civil Liberties Union assailed Blakeman's directive, releasing a statement saying it will only create a tougher relationship between immigrant communities and police officers. 

"Most New York counties do not partner with ICE for a reason: when local law enforcement act like ICE agents, they take on ICE’s reputation and sow deep distrust within the community," said Susan Gottehrer, the NYCLU's Nassau County director. "Immigrants become scared to speak to local police and under-report crimes due to fear of deportation — making it harder for officers to do their jobs and making everyone less safe."

A flurry of confusion, fear and legal challenges has swept the country since Trump signed a swath of executive orders tied to immigration enforcement within hours of reclaiming his seat in the Oval Office. He has pledged ending birthright citizenship for those born to immigrants who entered the country illegally, imposing the death penalty on people in the country illegally and convicted of federal murders and expediting the construction of a wall at the Southern border.

"We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came," Trump said in his inauguration speech.

Living in the United States even after entering the country illegally is not a crime in itself, but rather a civil matter. Illegal entry, however, can be a misdemeanor or felony crime. Many are people who entered the country legally, but work without authorization or have overstayed their visas.

There were 11 million "unauthorized immigrants" in the United States in 2022, according to data by Pew Research Center, a figure that doesn’t include the spike in entry over the last few years. There are an estimated 100,000  immigrants living in the country illegally on Long Island, according to 2019 data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.

New York state law prohibits local police from arresting people "for civil immigration violations alone," according to a memo issued by state Attorney General Letitia James. Officers are required to have probable cause that someone has committed a crime or offense.

The NYPD has said its officers are only working with ICE to arrest those who've arrived to the country illegally and have been accused of a crime. Two East End towns told residents last week that local police won’t get involved in immigration enforcement. The towns of Riverhead and Southold pledged to do "peacekeeping or traffic control" if federal authorities asked them to collect information on people’s immigration status.

ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection can request that local police hold someone already in their custody for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release. Local police can choose to comply with the so-called detainer or not.

The town of East Hampton reiterated in a statement Tuesday that its police will not detain anyone per the request of ICE without a federal warrant signed by a judge, as required by state law.

"There is no means for local law enforcement to determine anyone’s citizenship status, nor is the [police] allowed to inquire as to their status," the statement read.

With Joe Werkmeister

Correction: The article has been updated to reflect that County Executive Bruce Blakeman is relying on a 1996 rule under immigration law that allows police to effect arrests of immigrants accused of crimes. That rule is different from one referenced in a memo released by President Donald Trump last month.