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| Home Front: Politix |
| New York's new sanctuary state laws are a recipe for chaos |
| 2026-05-31 |
| [NYPost] Last week, New York state Democrats did what they do best: They jammed what will ultimately prove to be unpopular and counterproductive restrictions on immigration enforcement into the state budget. They did it with bail reform. They did it with juvenile justice reform. And they did it with criminal discovery reform. While frustration is an appropriate emotional response to this development, surprise is not. The changes being pushed through the recently passed budget bill are sweeping. According to reporting by The Post and others, the package includes measures:
If New York was a “sanctuary state” before, it will soon be a sanctuary state on steroids once the budget is signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. All of these measures fall somewhere between deeply misguided and legally suspect. First of all, the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause — which subordinates state law to federal law — makes clear that states cannot regulate federal entities, which means that federal courts may ultimately strike down some of these measures, depending on how they are enforced against federal authorities. Secondly, further restricting cooperation between local and federal law enforcement on immigration-related matters will undermine the safety and security of many New York communities. Hochul argues that such cooperation undermines local policing. Per Spectrum News, Hochul stated, “When [local police are] diverted into becoming ICE agents, literally doing their job with civil immigration enforcement, they’re not focused on what we need them to do.” This is purposeful obfuscation on the governor’s part. Local police often encounter illegal immigrants through everyday police work. The idea that allowing officers who’ve arrested someone for a crime through the normal course of discharging their duties should be prohibited from notifying ICE when that person happens to be an illegal immigrant — particularly one on whom ICE has placed a detainer — is a strange one. In departments operating under 287(g) agreements through which local officers are also deputized as federal agents, whatever time officers spend on federal matters will be compensated by federal authorities. More importantly, however, allowing cooperation with ICE may be the best hope a community has of getting an active offender off the street for any significant amount of time. In the post-bail reform era, many offenders (even chronic and violent ones) will find themselves back on the street within hours of their arrests. That reality has proven frustrating to both law-enforcement officers (who risk their lives to take offenders into custody only to see them waltz right out of the courthouse) as well as the community members harmed by offenders the system |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2026-05-31 10:27 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-05-31 09:25 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2026-05-31 09:13 |