Nassau 287(g) ICE agreement and defiance of state limits

Nassau signed an expansive 287(g) ICE agreement in 2025; Blakeman vowed to defy new state laws restricting ICE cooperation. On Jul 24, 2026 the AG's new Office of Immigrant Trust sent Nassau (and 11 other agencies) formal notice that the agreement must be unwound by Aug. 25 under the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act. Blakeman says county lawyers are reviewing and will respond in writing by Aug. 14. On Aug. 3, a federal judge (NDNY) denied the DOJ's bid to enjoin the state's 287(g) ban, leaving it in force and strengthening the state's legal position ahead of the Aug. 14/25 deadlines. No change to Nassau's agreement yet. UPDATE Aug 5-6: with the Aug. 25 deadline approaching, the 12 agencies are splitting — St. Lawrence's sheriff calls his agreement "dead in the water," Rensselaer's executive and sheriff openly defy the order amid resident backlash, and Saratoga's sheriff backs a planned lawsuit against the ban. Nassau's written response still due Aug. 14. UPDATE Aug 14: on the response deadline, Hochul and AG James said 5 of the 12 notified agencies will comply; Nassau's police department and sheriff are among the 7 that have not, with 11 days to the Aug 25 statutory deadline. Blakeman did not announce compliance — he publicly defended the agreement as "the most comprehensive agreement with ICE in the United States of America," disputed Hochul's "cruel" characterization, and claimed 2,000 removals of migrants with criminal records in a year (logged as unverified — no primary data published). Same day, Trump appeared at the Nassau County Police Academy with Blakeman, AG Blanche and FBI Director Patel, calling Hochul a "nightmare for crime." No formal Nassau termination or new litigation filing as of Aug 15. UPDATE Aug 18: ICE's own 287(g) roster shows 7 of the original 12 agencies still under agreement seven days before the deadline — Broome, Cattaraugus, Nassau, Niagara, Rensselaer and Steuben counties plus the Nassau County Police Department. The Madison County Sheriff's Office dissolved its agreement citing the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act; Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood is Blakeman's running mate. Broome officials say they house no federal detainees and will follow state law. ICE's monthly reports record one New York 287(g) encounter across May, June and July 2026 (two individuals, Cattaraugus County, Jun 5). Nassau has still announced no termination. UPDATE Aug 24-25 (deadline day): WAMC reports that of the 12 other jurisdictions notified, 11 have said they will withdraw from their 287(g) agreements by Aug. 25 — leaving Nassau as the sole undecided holdout. Blakeman told the New York Public News Network on Aug. 24: "We're still talking with our lawyers. They're reviewing the process. I'll make a decision shortly." Separately, Rensselaer County announced it will join a federal lawsuit to strike down the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, with Sheriff Kyle Bourgault as a named plaintiff; County Executive Steve McLaughlin said the state has not explained how ending the agreements makes anyone safer. Saratoga County Sheriff Jeff Brown has said he will sign on despite his county having no 287(g) agreement. The suit had not been filed as of Aug. 24, and the full plaintiff list is not yet public. UPDATE Aug 25-26 (deadline passed): the 287(g) ban took effect Aug 25 and the fight moved to court and to subpoenas. Fifteen New York county sheriffs filed suit the same day to strike the ban, arguing it nullifies "the ability of independently elected constitutional officers to enter into contracts authorized by federal law"; the state announcement and available reporting do not name all 15 plaintiffs, the court, or the full claims. Orange County Sheriff Paul Arteta is among the plaintiffs even though Orange terminated its ICE jail-detention contract. Separately, AG James subpoenaed four counties her office says did not comply — Nassau, Rensselaer, Broome and Steuben. Blakeman's spokesperson declined to comment on the Nassau subpoena; Blakeman defended the agreement at a campaign event ("We removed them from America, and we made safer communities by doing so") and, per Spectrum News, Nassau will not comply. Nassau has still announced no termination. Hochul and James called the suit "a frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars" and said "many of the 12 entities with these agreements have complied without incident" — the state has not published a per-agency compliance count, so the exact number complying is not verifiable from primary sources. Hochul said holdouts would face consequences without specifying them. UPDATE Aug 26 (afternoon): the plaintiff roster and court are now public. Court papers list all fifteen sheriffs — Broome (Frederick Akshar), Cattaraugus (Eric Butler), Cayuga (Brian Schenck), Delaware (Craig DuMond), Franklin (Jay Cook), Fulton (Richard Giardino), Jefferson (Peter Barnett), Lewis (Michael Carpinelli), Madison (Todd Hood), Orange (Paul Arteta), Oswego (Don Hilton), Rensselaer (Kyle Bourgault), Saratoga (Jeffrey Brown), St. Lawrence (Patrick Engle) and Wayne (Robert Milby) — with Hochul, AG James and the State of New York as defendants. The case is Bourgault et al. v. Hochul et al., No. 1:26-cv-01637 (N.D.N.Y.), filed Aug. 25 with the Federation for American Immigration Reform as counsel. The most directly election-relevant fact: Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood, a plaintiff, is Blakeman's running mate on the Republican statewide ticket. Hood signed Madison County's 287(g) agreement in July 2025, was warned by the AG in July 2026, ended the agreement as the law requires, and has said he will still honor ICE detainer requests at the county jail. Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley, who refused ICE cooperation in 2025, is not a plaintiff. The sheriffs seek a TRO and preliminary injunction against both the Act and the AG's Office of Immigrant Trust, and per FAIR's release also challenge a Nov. 25, 2026 deadline to terminate federal detention housing agreements (that November date comes from the plaintiffs' filing, not a state source, and is unverified). No judge, hearing date or ruling on the TRO has been reported. Nassau, which was subpoenaed, is not a plaintiff in this suit. UPDATE Aug 26 (late afternoon): Nassau folded. At a news conference Blakeman said the county will comply with the 287(g) ban rather than defy it, ending the standoff in which Nassau was the last undecided holdout — but he said he will still direct county police to cooperate with ICE "whenever possible" and will join the sheriffs' federal suit. He called the statute "written in the blood of victims past, present and future" and said he believes "in the rule of law, even when it's a bad law," and warned that future crimes by undocumented immigrants would be "blood on their hands" for Hochul and legislative Democrats. Hochul, at the State Fair, responded: "We have made dramatic progress. We didn't need any 287(g) agreements... I want local police using local taxpayer dollars to focus on catching local criminals." Reporting in the same piece establishes that 13 jurisdictions held formal agreements when the ban was enacted in May, that Nassau has held more than 1,000 people at its East Meadow jail for ICE since October 2025 (the most of any New York county), and that per Newsday, 147 of the immigrants detained at the Nassau jail between February 2025 and March 2026 had prior violent-crime convictions — under 5% of those arrested there. With Nassau's compliance, every notified jurisdiction has now either withdrawn or said it will; the dispute is now purely litigation (Bourgault v. Hochul, No. 1:26-cv-01637, N.D.N.Y.), where no ruling on the TRO has been reported, plus the AG's four outstanding subpoenas. Nassau's formal termination paperwork has not been published. UPDATE Aug 26 (evening, Capital Tonight): Blakeman clarified that Nassau will not join Bourgault v. Hochul as a co-plaintiff but will file a SEPARATE complaint piggybacking on it — "my sheriff is appointed, so we are joining them with a separate complaint" — because Nassau's sheriff, unlike the 15 elected plaintiff sheriffs, is appointed. He repeated that the law "makes us less safe" and claimed "there were no deaths at the hands of ICE in Nassau County"; the Hochul campaign rebutted by citing the ICE detainee found dead in a Nassau County jail cell in September 2025 (logged as a fact check, rated half_true). Nassau's separate complaint had not been filed as of the Aug 27 afternoon refresh. UPDATE Aug 27: the state escalated from subpoenas to an enforcement suit. AG James filed a state-court action asking a judge to terminate the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office 287(g) agreement — the only one of the 13 jurisdictions that refused to terminate. James: the office "has been given every opportunity to follow the law, yet has chosen not to." Court documents show Rensselaer's agreement, in place since 2018, has been used to remove nine immigrants. The two suits now run in parallel: the sheriffs' federal challenge to the ban (Bourgault v. Hochul, N.D.N.Y.) and the state's enforcement action against Bourgault's office. Nassau's promised separate complaint had still not been filed as of Aug 28. Aug 28: plaintiffs' counsel confirmed Nassau's acting sheriff Matarazzo has NOT yet joined Bourgault v. Hochul, despite Blakeman saying he directed him to; talks ongoing. Judge D'Agostino set the TRO/PI briefing schedule — state response due Sept. 9, sheriffs' reply Sept. 16. UPDATE (Sept 4, 2026): on the one-year anniversary of the Cato ICE raid, Hochul issued a statement defending the 287(g) ban and naming Homan and Mullin; state response in Bourgault v. Hochul still due Sept. 9.