ALBANY COUNTY — In a 29-to-9 vote, divided along party lines, the Albany County Legislature on March 9 passed a resolution saying that county agencies “will continue to comply with federal immigration laws but will neither cooperate with nor facilitate any operations of ICE or Border Patrol in Albany County.”

The Democrat-backed resolution lists three examples of prohibited cooperation:

— Execution of any agreements with ICE, DHS, CBP, or Border Patrol pursuant to Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. Created in 1996, this section allows ICE to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, delegating specific immigration enforcement authorities to designated officers;

— Use of any Albany County property as detention facilities for civil immigration enforcement; or

— Use of Albany County property as staging areas for ICE or Border Patrol operations.

The resolution states it does not prohibit the county sheriff “from notifying federal immigration authorities in advance of an individual’s release from custody, without extending that individual’s detention, if (1) the individual has been convicted of a felony under the New York Penal Law, federal law, or the law of another state, or (2) there is probable cause to believe that the individual has or is engaged in terrorist activity.”

The resolution is in effect until Dec. 31, 2026 unless it is withdrawn or extended by the legislature.

State legislation currently being promoted by Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, called the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, would similarly prohibit local law enforcement from being deputized by ICE for federal civil immigration enforcement. 

The state legislation would also keep ICE agents from making arrests in sensitive areas like hospitals, day-care centers, courts, and schools. And further, Hochul said, it would protect constitutional rights.

During a roundtable discussion with the governor last month, Albany County’s Democratic sheriff, Craig Apple, said to Hochul, “I will stand right with you to denounce what has been going on. This is a really sad time. And all the trust that we’ve worked so hard to build can be eroded very quickly.”

Apple concluded of the proposed state legislation, “Hopefully, this will stop that.”

Hochul responded to Apple that “trust” is a key word. “They have to trust law enforcement,” she said, stating that the public is conflating the tactics of ICE agents with local police.

“It’s so fragile and it seems like it’s gone now,” Hochul said, calling the destruction of trust “collateral damage” caused by the Trump administration.

Public views

Protracted public comment and floor debate preceded the county legislature’s March 9 vote.

David Singley, a retired Albany County corrections officer, opened the public-comment period, speaking against the resolution.

“When it gets right down to it,” he said, “we don’t want to have people who are here illegally committing crimes and then being released back out onto the streets.”

He also said, “Let’s not worry about judicial warrants.”

Tiana Hewitt, who works for the county, told the legislators, “I, as a naturalized American citizen, should not be afraid to walk to the bus stop without my passport for fear that I will not make it home to my loved ones. I, as a naturalized American citizen, should not have to fear that I will be questioned, hurt, or detained based on how I look or what I sound like.”

Hewitt said such profiling is because of inadequate ICE training and likened it to “tactics used by Nazis to justify forced ethnic cleansing.”

She also noted that naturalized Americans contribute to the economy and, as of 2023, she said, $405.2 million in annual taxes in Albany County were paid by new Americans.

“Desperate families” struggling to access the “slow, tedious pathways” to citizenship “should not be subject to violent and abusive treatment,” said Hewitt.

An organizing chairwoman for Indivisible Albany spoke in support of the resolution but said it was “too narrow.” Noting the Dec. 31 expiration date, she said, “Safety from federal overreach should not have an expiration date. These protections must remain until DHS is dismantled by an act of Congress.”

Benjamin Garry, a lawyer who lives in Colonie, opposed the resolution, saying, “Just because you disagree with the law, it doesn’t give you the right to disobey the law.”

He also said, “I believe that local government should be focused on local issues …. The citizens of Albany County don’t need their legislature to preemptively embroil our law enforcement and administrative agencies in conflict with the federal government.”

Garry told the legislators that, by passing the resolution, “You are literally placing the very people you want to protect in the crosshairs of those who you personally find to be acting in an excessive manner. If you don’t like the big guy on the playground, you don’t have to play with him. Don’t walk over and kick him in the shin, which is exactly what this resolution does.”

Party lines

Jeffrey Kuhn, a Democrat representing Delmar and Glenmont who sponsored the resolution, said, “The Trump administration has mandated that ICE and Border Patrol arrest at least 3,000 immigrants a day.”

He noted that, to meet this goal, ICE’s annual budget has been tripled to $75 billion over four years and said ICE “created a crash-course training program with agents originally only required to undergo 47 days of training, a nod to Donald Trump being the 47th president.” He contrasted the now-42 days of training with the year of training country sheriff’s deputies undergo.

“ICE has cut the classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention, and the limits of officers’ authority,” said Kuhn.

He went on, “Mass operations now involve arresting nearly anyone officers think may be an immigrant while their legal status is then assessed after they are taken into custody.”

Anticipating that legislators opposing the measure would share “lurid hypotheticals involving undocumented immigrants committing some sort of inflammatory crime,” Kuhn said, “This resolution would have zero effect on the way the Albany County sheriff deals with undocumented immigrants accused of a crime.”

The sheriff would still send fingerprints of arrested individuals to the FBI, which would share the information with ICE.

“If that person is in the Albany County jail,” said Kuhn, “and ICE obtains a judicial warrant for their arrest, ICE can come take them into custody."

Paul Burgdorf, a Colonie Republican, countered, “The Biden administration had completely opened the border and let in tens of millions of illegal immigrants, including major criminals over the course of his presidency. In fact, that was one of the largest factors in the last presidential election. That’s what it was about.”

Burgdorf also said, “We have a democracy that makes laws, but you don’t get to decide what laws you agree with and what laws you don’t.”

He went on, “Safely enforcing immigration law starts with cooperation and coordination between local and federal law-enforcement agencies. Never in history have I ever seen one law-enforcement agency diss another one …. By making Albany a sanctuary county, you’re inviting the illegals to come here and you’re telling ICE they can’t get them in the jail, they can’t get them in the courthouse, so go into the neighborhoods.”

Gary Domalewicz, an Albany Democrat, said, “In 2025, Albany County took in $7.2 million for immigration … These were all criminals that the sheriff brought in … They weren’t the workers that were in the store; they were the criminals that were robbing the store. That’s what we have in Albany County jail.”

He went on of county law-enforcement, “They’re still going to arrest bad guys. They’re still going to put bad guys in jail.”

Merton Simpson, another Albany Democrat, said that invoking adherence to the law was “playing a partisan game.”

“I challenge anybody to tell me any major decision that’s come out of Washington [that] is not a direct violation of the Constitution,” said Simpson.

He said of federal officers in Minneapolis killing two American citizens, “They killed in cold blood in front of the whole world while the national administration was arguing that these people were terrorists.”

Simpson concluded, “These sanctimonious howls from the other side need to stop. This Olympic hypocrisy needs to stop. We have to believe in ourselves.”

Beroro T. Efekoro, a Democrat representing the Pine Hills and Beverwyck neighborhoods, identified himself “as probably the only immigrant in here.”

He said, “We are a democracy. And we need to start acting like one.”

Mark Grimm, a Guilderland Republican, said, “Many, many immigrants have made the U.S. a better place. There’s no doubt about it. But what about the violent ones? What about the ruthless ones?”

He opposed the resolution as a “mixed message and frankly a chaotic approach.”

Grimm went on, “It drives a wedge between local and federal law enforcement, and that is not a path to public safety … The focus should be on working together to cooperate better.”

Patrice Lockart, a Colonie Republican, read through  a list of crimes committed by immigrants “right here in Albany County.”

“Preventing coordination and cooperation between law enforcement agencies is only going to get more innocent people hurt,” she said.

Gilbert Ethier, a Cohoes Democrat, said he was elected to address the budget and other local issues; dealing with federal-government issues is “going a little too far,” he said.

Still, Ethier said, he’d support the resolution, because he didn’t like the way ICE treated people in Minnesota. Ethier concluded, “Our sheriff can still function the way he always functions.”

Susan Pedo, an Albany Democrat, said, “We took an oath to protect the safety of the residents of Albany County. That includes all of our residents but most recently the rights of an 11-year-old boy,” an Albany School District student, whose rights were “horribly violated,” she said.

The boy was taken to a deportation center in Texas, Pedo said. “No one knew where he was. His school teachers tried to help him. They had told him that he was safe, that it was OK for him to come to school, and that he would be protected because this is a great country that looks out for our citizens, that defends their rights, and takes care of our children. We failed this child.”

His classmates, she said, are now afraid to go to school and are afraid of federal agents.

“This has changed our community forever,” said Pedo. “Hoefully this resolution can help to undo some of this damage.”

Democrat Dannielle Hille said, “I come from two parents who did not grow up here. And my mother actually gained her citizenship just a few years ago.”

She cited her work with incarcerated individuals and noted “immigrants, including illegal immigrants, are actually less likely to commit crimes than American citizens.”

Hille said she was concerned with the emphasis put on immigrants who had committed crimes.

She also said of immigrants, “There has to be a better way to allow them the same dream that a lot of our parents had when they immigrated here, or our grandparents or great-grandparents.”

She said immigrants, “illegal or not illegal, deserve to be treated humanely.”

Jeff Perlee, an Altamont Republican, responded, “I, for one, am for treating all humans as humans and for treating all people who violate the law the same way whether they’re an American citizen or an illegal immigrant.”

Referencing Kuhn, Perlee said, “The sponsor notes correctly that nothing in this resolution would prohibit the continued enforcement of federal immigration law in Albany County …. The only question is: Will it be enforced in a safe or a potentially dangerous manner?”

Perlee argued that having well-trained Albany County officers “participating in the enforcement of federal immigration apprehension” would be the safe course.

He asked, “How does forcing an inherently dangerous activity out onto the streets, undertaken only with supposedly undertrained enforcers, protect the public safety and domestic tranquility of Albany County?”

He answered himself, “It does not. It will do just the opposite.”

Ryan Conway, a Republican representing Loudonville, listed names of “women that were brutally raped and murdered by illegal immigrants.”

He said, “If we do not cooperate with ICE, that becomes Albany County.”

Carolyn McLaughlin, an Albany Democrat, said, “Looking around this room, I see leaders, right here in this room, who are immigrants. I see staff who are in law school, who are contributing to the daily work that we do. And we listen to our own staff member stand up here and say, I’ve got to carry around their passport.”

Rather than speaking of rapists and murderers, McLaughlin urged, “Look around the room… people you see every day who are contributing in a positive manner to this community, to Albany County …. I have got to stand here and speak on the other side, of the positive things that I see that are being added to this country and this community specifically. So I stand strongly compelled to support this resolution. I encourage the rest of you in this room to do the same thing.