Fifteen New York sheriffs are suing Governor Kathy Hochul over a state law that blocks them from helping federal immigration enforcement — and the case could define whether Democrat-run states can simply cancel federal law within their borders.
New York’s “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act” forces county sheriffs to abandon existing agreements with ICE, even when those sheriffs — elected by their own communities — want to protect citizens from criminal illegal immigrants.
The law doesn’t just say New York won’t participate. It commands local governments to terminate federal agreements already in place and declares those agreements “void and unenforceable.”
That matters because Congress created Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act specifically to let willing local law enforcement work with ICE. The federal program is voluntary — sheriffs choose to join based on what their counties need.
Now Albany is overruling those sheriffs.
“When a State coerces local officials into abandoning the very cooperative mechanisms Congress authorized, it does not merely regulate its own internal affairs. It commandeers those officials into a regime of obstruction that frustrates the federal scheme.”
The lawsuit, Bourgault v. Hochul, was filed the day the ban took effect. The sheriffs argue New York violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause — the principle that federal law beats conflicting state law — and the Contract Clause, which bars states from canceling existing contracts.
A federal judge in Virginia already saw through this trick. On August 31, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Payne blocked key parts of a similar Virginia law, ruling the federal government would likely win on both constitutional grounds.
New York’s own constitution makes county sheriffs locally elected officers. The ironically named “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act” strips those elected sheriffs of the discretion to decide how best to protect their own counties.
The historical parallel is hard to miss. In 1832, South Carolina claimed it could declare federal tariff laws “null, void, and no law” within state borders. Democrats called it nullification.
New York isn’t using the same language — but the logic is identical. Albany disapproves of federal immigration enforcement, so it’s using state law to render a federally authorized program inoperative within New York.
Immigration regulation is a federal power. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause makes valid federal laws “the supreme Law of the Land.” States can decline to participate in federal programs — but they can’t order local governments to abandon programs Congress created and those communities chose to join.
If New York’s law survives, the implications stretch far beyond immigration. Other sanctuary states will feel emboldened to pass laws blocking any federal program they oppose — not by declining to participate themselves, but by forcing cities and counties to withdraw.
The case asks a simple question: Who decides whether a federal program operates through willing local partners — Washington, Albany, or the sheriffs voters elected?
Patriots already know the answer. The United States of America is one nation under federal law — not a patchwork where blue-state governors can veto what Congress passed and the president enforces.
