Gov. Kathy Hochul is poised to make New York the nation’s latest sanctuary state, completing a remarkable evolution from an upstate county clerk who once threatened to call the authorities on undocumented immigrants seeking driver’s licenses.
Experts say a package to protect immigrants that the governor is inserting into the state budget falls short in some ways of what other states, including California and Illinois, have had on the books since President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
But the package — and Hochul’s about-face — reflect the new political reality of the Republican president’s second term: Aggressive roundups of immigrants have pushed even moderate Democrats like Hochul to stand up to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, deepening the rancor on a long-debated topic.
“A fundamental shift happened in the country on immigration after Minnesota,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonprofit think tank the Migration Policy Institute. “Everything that was considered unacceptable and sort of third rail in immigration politics, suddenly became acceptable.”
Just a year ago, Democrats across the country were avoiding immigration politics after having been badly burned in the 2024 presidential election, when an influx of migrants crossing the southern border emerged as a central issue.
Hochul repeatedly told a GOP-controlled congressional committee last June that “we cooperate with ICE” during a testy hearing. State lawmakers adjourned their session that month without taking any action.
Now, Albany lawmakers say they’ve agreed on a deal to ban formal 287(g) cooperation agreements between police agencies and federal immigration enforcement officials as part of a package set for inclusion in the state budget. Lawmakers say they will also restrict when immigration agents can wear masks and forbid them from arresting people at sensitive locations like schools and polling places.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill earlier this year signed bills that restrict masking by ICE agents and codify existing state policy of generally prohibiting police officers from asking people about immigration status. And in Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore signed bills prohibiting 287(g) agreements as well as restricting enforcement in sensitive places.
Still, all three governors are poised to fall short of the demands of immigration advocacy groups. Sherill’s predecessor, Phil Murphy, refused to sign a bill that would have broadly restricted police cooperation.
New Jersey immigration advocates argued that a narrower bill this year limiting police cooperation with ICE should have gone further, but said it was still important for Sherrill to codify existing state policy into law, so future administrations wouldn’t withdraw it.
Madison Linton of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice said the bills Sherill signed have been “weakened and fail to address the root of the issue belaying federal overreach.”
In addition to the two bills he approved, Moore hasn’t said if he’ll sign another measure on his desk. The Community Trust Act more broadly prohibits informal cooperation beyond the formal ban on 287(g) agreements. Both advocates and opponents of the measure are lobbying the governor; spokespeople for Moore didn’t return a message seeking comment.
And Hochul rebuffed advocates and lawmakers who pushed her to embrace the New York for All Act, which would generally prohibit cooperation between local and federal authorities absent a judicial warrant.
State Sen. Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, said she wished the package in the budget did more. But she said she is happy that it includes a bill she sponsors prohibiting local jails from detaining people for ICE.
“I regret that we were not able to get all three parties to support New York for All,” she said. “But I am really looking forward to ending immigration detention in New York state.”
Hochul and other moderates were concerned about attacks over causing the release of violent criminals. The governor is touting the narrower agreement.
“I don't think that we should be doing ICE's job for them,” she said Friday. “I want to make sure that we're focused on what police officers should be doing, and not distracted, fulfilling Donald Trump's desire to remove anyone who does not look like him.”
A Hochul administration spokesperson said the governor does not use the term “sanctuary” to describe the policies she’s supporting, noting the term carries different meanings to different people.
“There is no sanctuary in New York for people who commit crimes and the state will continue to coordinate with federal officials when cracking down on violent criminals and gang violence,” said Jen Goodman, a spokesperson for Hochul.
California and other blue states have for years limited state and local police cooperation with federal immigration officers. A 2017 California law prohibits state and local police from informing ICE of an individual’s jail release date unless that person has been convicted of certain serious crimes. And under an Illinois state law passed that same year, local law enforcement agencies in the state are prohibited from cooperating with ICE unless presented with a judicial warrant.
New York wouldn’t go as far as California and Illinois in terms of limiting state and local police cooperation with ICE. And the law would come on the books almost a decade later. Salazar said New York isn’t as progressive a state as many people think, as shown by Hochul’s evolution.
“It does demonstrate maybe a difference between the reality of ideology in this state outside of the cities, compared to the perception,” she said. “But I do think that the fact that we are doing this demonstrates a change in that ideology toward more empathy for our immigrant neighbors."
Bill Hyers, a political consultant who works on campaigns across the country, said the Empire State moves more slowly than other places.
“It takes forever to get anything passed, but once it's passed, it's there forever. Most other states I work in and I play in, it's much easier to get something done. It's also easier to undo it,” he said.
Still, Chishti, the Migration Policy Institute fellow, said the pending package “puts New York state squarely in the forefront of the restriction on federal immigration enforcement… This is clearly in the vanguard.”
Nation-leading or not, Republicans object.
Border czar Tom Homan earlier this month threatened to surge ICE agents to New York if lawmakers proceed with the proposed package. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who is running against Hochul, said he would sue if the new law annuls his county’s cooperation agreements with ICE.
GOP lawmakers in Albany said they oppose the package because they fear it will impede public safety.
“In very simple terms, law enforcement agencies should be working together,” said state Sen. Pat Gallivan, a Republican who previously served as Erie County sheriff. “When we put impediments in that … it does not serve citizens well.”
He remembered when Hochul was Erie County clerk, and in 2007 gained prominence by threatening to call immigration authorities on undocumented immigrants who followed a state policy and applied for drivers’ licenses.
“She has evolved or camouflaged herself through her career,” said Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, of Niagara County.
Hochul has said that her thinking has evolved as ICE raids have grown bolder. But New York’s more aggressive stance on immigration issues may also come with a cost.
“It does put New York state potentially in the crosswires of the president,” Chishti said. “If there’s going to be a constitutional fight on this issue now, New York state is now ripe for that.”
