New York State Sues Upstate Sheriff Over ICE Agreement After Sheriffs Sue Albany

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Gov. Kathy Hochul sued the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, asking a state court to force Sheriff Kyle Bourgault to terminate the county’s 287(g) agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The filing in Rensselaer County Supreme Court comes two days after Bourgault and 14 other county sheriffs sued Hochul and James in federal court in Albany seeking to block the same statute. The state says Rensselaer is the only New York agency that still refuses to confirm it has ended its ICE contract after an Aug. 25 deadline.

The complaint relies on the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, signed May 27 as part of the state budget. The law bars local governments and law-enforcement agencies from entering, renewing, or remaining in agreements under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Agencies that already had such pacts were given 90 days to exercise their termination clauses. As of Aug. 25, any covered agreement still in force is “void and unenforceable” under New York Executive Law § 170-k. James’s office alleges Rensselaer has kept a jail-enforcement 287(g) since March 2020 that lets deputies identify noncitizens in the county jail and start immigration proceedings, typically by notifying ICE. The attorney general sent an investigative demand under Executive Law § 63-E on Aug. 19 seeking proof of termination and says she has not received it. The suit names Bourgault and the county. It asks the court for mandamus under CPLR § 7803 ordering the sheriff to terminate the agreement and for a declaration that the pact is void as a matter of state law. The state says 12 New York agencies had 287(g) agreements before the law took effect and that Rensselaer is the only one that has not indicated it will end its contract.

Bourgault is the lead plaintiff in Bourgault v. Hochul, filed Aug. 25 in the Northern District of New York (No. 1:26-cv-01637) by counsel for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Fourteen other sheriffs joined, including Fred Akshar of Broome County, Todd Hood of Madison County, Eric Butler of Cattaraugus County, Patrick Engle of St. Lawrence County, and Robert Milby of Wayne County. Their complaint seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. It argues the 287(g) ban and a companion statute giving James power to investigate cooperating sheriffs violate the U.S. and New York constitutions, interfere with existing federal contracts, and encroach on local public-safety authority. The sheriffs describe the harm as “imminent and irreparable.” Hochul said agencies that keep ICE agreements “will face legal action” and told challengers to “bring it on.” James and Hochul called the federal case a waste of taxpayer money and said most of the 12 agencies with 287(g) pacts have complied. The Office of Immigrant Trust also issued subpoenas to sheriffs in Broome, Steuben, Nassau, and Rensselaer counties and to the Nassau County Police Department. The Trump administration has separately challenged New York’s restrictions on ICE cooperation in federal court. Both the state’s mandamus action against Rensselaer and the sheriffs’ suit against Albany are now pending.