By Jasper Ward
Jan 30 (Reuters) – New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday introduced a bill aimed at banning local law enforcement from being deputized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take part in immigration enforcement operations.
The bill, which was unveiled amid national U.S. protests following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minnesota, would end an agreement enabling ICE to task state and local law enforcement officers with performing certain ICE functions under the agency’s oversight.
The proposal would also prevent state and local police from acting as federal agents or using state taxpayer-funded resources or personnel to carry out federal civil immigration enforcement.
The proposed law would allow people to sue federal officers for constitutional violations and require immigration officers to have judicial warrants to enter sensitive locations such as homes and schools.
Hochul’s fellow Democrats control the state legislature.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has federal oversight of immigration enforcement, said the move would make New Yorkers less safe.
“When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with us, that is when we have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities,” department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.
The move follows similar actions by other states in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in major cities.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)
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