The acting U.S. deputy attorney general called on Thursday for an investigation of an upstate New York sheriff who had released an undocumented immigrant from custody — in an apparent escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against sanctuary cities.
Emil Bove III, who was named acting deputy attorney general last week, said that the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York was looking into the failure of Sheriff Derek R. Osborne of Tompkins County to honor a federal arrest warrant. It was for the arrest of Jesus Romero-Hernandez, 27, a Mexican citizen who Mr. Bove said was released from jail in Ithaca, N.Y., on Tuesday after having pleaded guilty to assault in the third degree.
“I applaud the U.S. attorney’s commitment to investigate these circumstances for potential prosecution,” Mr. Bove said in a news release.
The episode in Ithaca, 230 miles north of New York City, could present an early test of the Trump administration’s threat to take on so-called sanctuary city policies, which include various measures to bar local officials from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE has stepped up immigration raids since Mr. Trump took office, focusing on immigrants with criminal records. In New York City on Tuesday, 39 people were arrested in a show of force, with ICE agents teaming with other federal agencies.
The administration created a “Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group” and is threatening to bring civil lawsuits against jurisdictions that stand in the federal government’s way on immigration enforcement.
In the Tompkins County case, agents with ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Homeland Security arrested Mr. Romero-Hernandez on Thursday. He was charged on Jan. 8, 2024, with illegally re-entering the United States after a prior removal, according to the Justice Department.
Mr. Romero-Hernandez had been sentenced on the state assault charge to the time he had already served in local custody. The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office released him before ICE was able to pick him up from the jail, according to Mr. Bove.
“A defendant with no legal status and a history of violence was released into the community,” Mr. Bove said. “Federal agents risked their safety and pursued the defendant in unsafe conditions.”
“The Justice Department will not tolerate actions that endanger law enforcement and make their jobs harder,” he added.
But the sheriff is under no legal obligation to hold an inmate beyond his release date, according to Matthew Piers, a lawyer in Chicago who has worked on several sanctuary laws and has defended them in court.
He said that the criminal warrant gives ICE the authority to arrest someone like Mr. Romero-Hernandez, who faces charges for re-entering the country without authorization.
The warrant does not “authorize local law enforcement to continue to hold someone as to whom there is no longer authority to maintain custody,” Mr. Piers said.
Mr. Osborne and the Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to calls and emails seeking comment. In a news article published Thursday by The Ithaca Times, Mr. Osborne said, “ICE does not inform my office of potential raids, and we do not have jurisdiction over immigration enforcement.”
The sheriff added, “We do not work with them in any capacity. I can’t think of a time we have even had an interaction with ICE.”
Many details about Mr. Romero-Hernandez’s case could not be confirmed on Thursday night, including whether local law enforcement agencies had any jurisdiction to keep him in custody after a State Supreme Court judge ordered his release on time served. In some jurisdictions, sheriffs who choose to cooperate with ICE and are not limited by local laws agree to hold immigrants for 48 hours to give ICE time to pick them up.
It is uncommon for a Justice Department leader of Mr. Bove’s stature — he is the second most powerful federal law enforcement agent — to get involved in a case like this, when the immigrant is charged with re-entering the country without permission, a fairly low-level charge. But Mr. Trump has told the Justice Department to prioritize these cases and to punish jurisdictions that do not cooperate. (Mr. Bove is a former member of President Donald Trump’s personal legal team.)
In his statement, Mr. Bove made clear that his involvement in the case was related to the administration’s efforts to push back against local jurisdictions that take steps to shield undocumented immigrants from arrests by federal law enforcement agencies.
“We will use every tool at our disposal to prevent sanctuary city policies from impeding and obstructing lawful federal operations,” he said.
Ithaca’s Common Council voted to approve a sanctuary law in 2017, limiting involvement by local law enforcement agencies in immigration enforcement. On Jan. 22, the same day that Mr. Trump said in an interview on Fox News that he “might have to” cut federal funding to cities with sanctuary laws, Ithaca’s lawmakers voted to reaffirm the city’s own law.
Reached for comment Thursday evening, members of the Common Council declined to discuss specifics of Mr. Romero-Hernandez’s case, which they described as complex. But they defended Ithaca’s sanctuary city law and criticized the Trump administration’s tactics as racially motivated.
“The policy of mass deportation, going into cities and violating the wishes of local officials, I believe it to be rooted in racism and xenophobia,” Tiffany Kumar, a member of the Common Council, said. “We have affirmed that we’re a sanctuary city. So, it sounds like Trump is following upon what he said we would do.”
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