How Two NY Counties Are Ignoring Hochul — and Helping Ice Deport Migrant Criminals

Two Venezuelan migrants, reputedly members of the Tren de Aragua gang, were released without bail last week after the Queens District Attorney’s Office reduced their felony gun and drug charges to lesser offenses.

They should have been on the next flight to Caracas, not walking the streets of New York.

Blame the city and state’s sanctuary laws, which limit cooperation with President Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts to deport criminal aliens.

But if Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Democrats and progressive prosecutors won’t play ball with the president and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two New York counties will.

Rensselaer County, just east of Albany, has been cooperating with federal partners to remove migrant criminals since 2018, when County Executive Steve McLaughlin joined ICE’s 287(g) program.

The program trains local sheriff’s deputies in immigration law, enabling them to interview inmates regarding their status.

If they determine a suspect is in the US illegally, they can file a detainer and hand the individual over to ICE for deportation proceedings.

Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post

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Paul Dreyer is a Cities Policy Analyst at the Manhattan Institute. Kerry Soropoulos is a collegiate associate at the Manhattan Institute.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images