By Auxio.tv News | August 29, 2026
Fifteen New York county sheriffs are challenging a new state law that blocks local law-enforcement agencies from maintaining formal 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The law, known as the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May. It prohibits state and local agencies from entering into or remaining in agreements that allow local officers to perform certain federal civil immigration-enforcement functions. Existing agreements had to be terminated by August 25.
The sheriffs filed suit on August 25, arguing that Albany should not be able to prevent locally elected law-enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James have defended the law and say local police resources should remain focused on local crime rather than federal civil immigration enforcement.
That disagreement gets to a larger issue than immigration alone.
The question is who gets to decide how local law enforcement uses its authority.
Sheriffs are elected locally. Albany writes state law. Immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility.
When those three levels of government disagree, the dispute quickly becomes one of institutional power.
New York has already begun enforcing the law. On August 27, James and Hochul sued the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office, saying it failed to terminate its 287(g) agreement by the deadline. The state says Rensselaer was the only one of the 12 agencies with preexisting agreements that had not indicated it would comply.
The state also won an early court victory earlier this month. On August 3, a federal judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking New York’s 287(g) ban in a separate challenge brought by the federal government.
That does not end the current sheriffs’ lawsuit.
It does show that the legal fight has already moved beyond political rhetoric.
For Hochul, the argument is that local police should not be diverted into federal immigration work.
For the sheriffs, the issue is whether the state can prevent elected local law-enforcement officials from voluntarily assisting federal authorities.
Both sides are now asking the courts to decide where that authority begins and ends.
The practical question is just as important as the constitutional one:
If local agencies believe cooperation with ICE makes their communities safer, should Albany be able to stop them?
Or does allowing each county to set its own immigration-enforcement policy create a patchwork the state has a legitimate interest in controlling?
That is the dispute now moving through the courts.
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