04/30/2026
Undersheriff Colin Reagan joined Sheriffs and Undersheriffs from across New York State in Albany this week, where they came together to show opposition against pending legislation proposed in this year’s budget. Please see the below statement issued by the New York State Sheriffs' Association, to learn why this is important to public safety:
STATEMENT OF THE NEW YORK STATE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION REGARDING VARIOUS PROPOSALS TO RESTRICT SHERIFFS AND OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTIES WHEN IMMIGRATION ISSUES ARE INVOLVED
We wish to express our concerns about proposals which have recently been floated by various State Legislators and by the Governor regarding interactions between Sheriffs’ personnel and federal immigration authorities. We recognize the role of the Legislature and the Governor in exercising their law-making function under the State Constitution. However, we want the Legislature and the Governor to recognize that, as Sheriffs, we also are Constitutional officers. Our authority and our obligations come from the State Constitution, and we are compelled to speak out when legislation is proposed that will hamper us in carrying out our Constitutional duty to protect the citizens of this state. Our status as independently elected Constitutional officers gives us the freedom, and the obligation, to speak out, and to serve as a kind of check and balance on legislative overreach on the state or local level.
Indications are that the Legislature is planning to adopt, as part of the State Budget process, some of the proposals which we find troubling, and that is our first concern. These proposals are serious policy matters that should be openly discussed and debated, with full opportunity for those directly affected -- Sheriffs and the public -- to have input and to hear the debate. Adopting important public policy changes in what amounts to a closed, secret process, is not a good way to do the People’s business. As law enforcement officers chosen by and accountable to the People under the Constitution, we believe we have something to contribute to any discussion regarding law enforcement in this State, and we should have a seat at the table during such discussions. The regular legislative process gives us , and the public, an opportunity to understand the positions of the various legislators, and to share our knowledge and perspective regarding their legislative proposals. Adopting serious policy changes in the budget process forecloses that opportunity for us, and for our citizens. We urge the Governor and the Legislature to consider these proposals only in the regular legislative process where we and the public have at least some opportunity to influence and monitor the passage of important public policy legislation.
Although we do not have the advantage of having seen any actual Budget Bill language, we would like to address some of the immigration-related proposals that have been mentioned:
A PROPOSED BAN ON SHERIFFS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ENTERING INTO 287-g AGREEMENTS WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: The rhetoric around 287-g agreements shows little understanding of what those agreements are all about in New York. Only about eight Sheriffs’ Offices have 287-g agreements, and those agreements have nothing to do with enforcing immigration laws on the streets of those communities. They are merely administrative agreements facilitating, where appropriate, the safe transfer of prisoners held in jail on state criminal charges, to federal authorities, upon completion of the state charges. This commonsense practice is much safer for the federal law enforcement officers, the public and the prisoners than merely turning the prisoners out onto the street, thus setting them up for a future encounter with federal agents in a public, uncontrolled, unsafe setting. The decision of whether or not a 287-g agreement best serves the safety of the community is better left to the discretion of the Sheriff and local law enforcement than to the State Legislature.
A PROPOSED BAN ON SHERIFFS COMMUNICATING OR COORDINATING WITH IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES ON NON-CRIMINAL MATTERS: Sheriffs and other local law enforcement officers, and the State Police, communicate with federal law enforcement officers on multiple topics on a regular basis. This is done for the safety of both the state and federal officers and for the safety of the public. The necessity for such communication is a lesson learned in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, where it is commonly agreed that such an attack was made possible by the failure of federal, state and local authorities to properly communicate and coordinate with each other in their daily activities. We in law enforcement have spent the last 25 years breaking down agency “silos” and creating an atmosphere of trust and cooperation between all levels of law enforcement. The proposed ban on communicating or cooperating with an important unit of federal law enforcement would be a huge step backward and would be detrimental to the safety of the public in areas way beyond immigration issues.
We would also point out that it is not always possible to discern whether a particular topic of discussion or coordination relates to a criminal matter or a civil immigration matter -- especially in the early stages of the communication. And, in any event, most illegal entries into the country are crimes -- federal misdemeanors or felonies. And often the inter-agency communication may merely be the sharing of intelligence, again for the safety of the officers on all sides and the safety of the public. These important public safety exchanges should not be hampered because some are unhappy with the mission given to immigration law enforcement officers by federal law. And there are serious concerns about violation of Constitutional free speech rights arising from such a prohibition.
One proposal seeks to specifically ban law enforcement officers from collecting or sharing information on the citizenship or immigration status of an individual. Suffice it to point out that such a ban would violate federal law which provides that no state shall prohibit any official from maintaining or exchanging such information with any federal, state or local entity. Furthermore, such a ban would also violate New York State’s own requirement that upon arrest, the arresting agency must collect and maintain information on the citizenship status and place of birth of the arrestee.
Sheriffs do not participate in immigration enforcement activities in their communities. However, it is not unusual for them to coordinate with federal immigration authorities who are engaged in such enforcement, again, for the safety of all officers and the public. When Sheriffs or other local law enforcement agencies are informed of immigration enforcement activities in their jurisdictions, they may decide that the safety of the community would best be served by their engaging in traffic control, crowd control, perimeter security, or whatever other law enforcement activity they would normally provide during any event where such police activities would be advisable. It would be reckless for a Sheriff to fail to provide such services where their need is indicated, just because the need was occasioned by immigration enforcement activity. The Sheriffs’ Constitutional duty is to protect the citizens, and the Legislature should not attempt to impede the Sheriffs’ performance of that duty out of disdain for the mission given to immigration law enforcement officers by federal law.
We also urge the Legislature to seriously consider the damage to our state and local federal grant-dependent programs, and to governmental entities that depend upon federal revenue sharing, which will assuredly be negatively impacted by the state’s refusal to allow cooperation with the federal government. No doubt many state and local programs will suffer, but probably none more than our law enforcement programs.
A PROPOSED BAN ON ANY AGREEMENT TO HOUSE FEDERAL CIVIL IMMIGRATION PRISONERS IN LOCAL JAILS: Many Sheriffs and counties have agreements with federal agencies to house criminal and civil federal inmates in their jails, pending further federal action. These agreements are part of the Sheriffs’ efforts to cooperate with fellow law enforcement officers as they carry out the duties assigned to them by federal law. And another part of it is an effort to relieve their citizens of some of the overhead cost of maintaining the county jail in an era when there are many vacant beds due to a spate of criminal justice policy changes in recent years.
A prohibition on housing civil immigration inmates in the county jails would be detrimental to our federal law enforcement partners and a blow to our citizen taxpayers. But it would be even more detrimental to the immigrants whose welfare is the concern of many. We must recognize that civil immigration inmates are going to be housed somewhere. It seems to us that the immigrant is better off being housed locally, near the site of apprehension, where presumably he has contacts, support networks, and maybe family, rather than being shipped to perhaps Louisiana, Texas or Arizona to be housed in whatever facilities may be found there. New York has probably the most closely regulated and monitored jails in the country, where inmates are assured of safe, secure housing and above average programming and medical services. It seems to us that banning the housing of civil immigration inmates in our county jails would be a clear case of the Legislature cutting off its nose, to spite its face.
A PROPOSED BAN ON FACE COVERINGS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS EXCEPT IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES: Sheriffs do not routinely authorize the use of face masks by their officers, except in certain cases of necessity and most of those cases are covered by the proposed exceptions to the ban. However, one could conceive of additional circumstances, rare though they might be, where the wearing of a mask would be necessary in order to protect an officer, and that decision should be left to the sound judgment of the Sheriff who is faced with those actual circumstances in the field, not prejudged by the Legislature sitting comfortably in Albany. If, for instance, in a particular situation it becomes clear that facial identification is being used to enable doxing, swatting or other forms of harassment of Deputies or their families, the Sheriff should be free to authorize masks to protect those officers. The job of a law enforcement officer is stressful enough, and the recruiting and retention of officers is difficult enough, so that the Legislature should not compound those problems by overreaction to a non-issue in New York.
A PROPOSED BAN ON ALLOWING FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES TO ENTER THE JAIL TO PICK UP IMMIGRATION PRISONERS THEY ARE LEGALLY AUTHORIZED TO DETAIN: It is proposed to declare the non-public area of jails as “sensitive areas” where immigration authorities must be denied access for the purpose of picking up civil immigration detainees. Obviously, the only purpose of this prohibition would be to make it more difficult for immigration officers to perform the mission given to them by federal law. The result would be to create a more dangerous situation for the corrections officers, the federal officers, the immigrant and the general public. The immigrant will be transferred to federal custody somewhere. If not in the secure setting of the jail, then in the public lobby or on the street outside the jail, which makes more likely a physical confrontation and resulting danger to the officers, the immigrant and the public. Sheriffs should be allowed to use their best judgment regarding the safest way to carry out the legal transfer of an inmate from the jail to federal authorities.
In conclusion, we urge the Legislature and the Governor to reach out to us, and to engage in good faith discussions on how their objectives may be accomplished, without impeding our ability to carry out our Constitutional obligation to keep the public safe. If these proposals are enacted as they have been presented, we will of course obey the law, but we will continue to speak out against those enactments which we feel are detrimental to public safety; where required for the safety of the public we will continue to cooperate with our fellow law enforcement officers, at every level, in every way that we legally can; and, where there is a legal avenue to do so, we will challenge those provisions that we feel improperly impinge on the Constitutional authority of the Sheriff as the Keepers of the Peace in our jurisdictions.
