Two weeks after President Trump returned to power, the Republican leaders of Nassau County on Long Island vowed to help him with his immigration crackdown.
They were among the first local government leaders in the United States to announce a partnership between their Police Department and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to conduct immigration arrests during Mr. Trump’s second term. Across the nation, hundreds of other police agencies forged similar agreements, jump-starting a crucial part of Mr. Trump’s agenda: enlisting local law enforcement to boost deportations.
On Tuesday, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued Nassau County and its Police Department, arguing that the partnership was unlawful.
The lawsuit, the first of its kind in New York State, says that the agreement between the county and the federal government violates state law, undermines protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and promotes racial profiling.
If successful, the suit could threaten similar or future agreements in New York. Two other counties that lean conservative — Broome and Niagara — signed partnerships with ICE this year, joining Rensselaer County, which has had a pact with federal immigration authorities since 2018.
“It’s a recipe for racial and ethnic profiling,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s a devastating attack on fundamental rights for the Police Department in Nassau County to be behaving like ICE.”
Chris Boyle, a spokesman for Bruce Blakeman, the Republican county executive and Trump ally who unveiled the partnership in February, said on Tuesday that Mr. Blakeman “is confident that all measures taken to protect communities in Nassau County are legal and properly authorized.”
Mr. Boyle did not immediately respond to questions about whether the 10 detectives Mr. Blakeman had promised to empower to conduct immigration arrests had undergone the required training or had officially been deputized.
Nassau County also announced in February that it would hold up to 50 immigrants at a time for ICE in a county jail. That agreement, which is not being challenged in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, provides the agency with a location to temporarily hold migrants near New York City before they are transferred to long-term detention centers.
The suit comes as Long Island, where immigrants account for about one-fifth of the population, has experienced a visible increase in ICE activity in recent weeks. Immigration activists say they have compiled reports of ICE officers detaining people at supermarkets, delis, home improvement stores, parking lots and food pantries.
That has prompted protests, including a rally on Saturday in Port Washington, a coastal hamlet on Long Island’s North Shore, where more than 100 residents demanded the release of Fernando Mejia, 41, the longtime manager of a popular bagel shop who was arrested by ICE this month. The agency said that it had an order calling for the deportation of Mr. Mejia, who was detained on his way to work.
In another case this month, Elzon Lemus, a Hispanic man born and raised on Long Island, was driving when he was stopped by federal agents in Nassau County and arrested. After his release, Mr. Lemus said he had been detained because of his race.
The 27-page lawsuit filed on Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court in Nassau County says that the agreement between Nassau County and ICE runs afoul of a 2018 decision by a state appeals court.
That ruling stemmed from a suit that the New York Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of a man from India who had been held in 2017 by the Suffolk County sheriff on Long Island before being transferred to ICE’s custody. The appellate judges found that state law prevented local police officers from conducting immigration arrests at the request of ICE.
“This is settled law in New York State,” said Rubin Danberg Biggs, the lead lawyer in the case filed on Tuesday.
Latino Justice, a civil rights group, and the Community Legal Assistance Corporation, which provides legal services to immigrants, also joined the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of five plaintiffs. Two of the plaintiffs are Long Island residents, including an unnamed man who is undocumented and has been stopped repeatedly by the Nassau police over many decades, and three are organizations that work closely with undocumented migrants, including the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.
While Mr. Blakeman and Nassau police leaders have spoken enthusiastically about the collaboration with ICE, they have also emphasized the limits of their cooperation.
When he announced the partnership in February, Mr. Blakeman said that the main mission of officers who embedded with ICE teams would be to detain undocumented immigrants who had been accused or convicted of crimes. The officers would also conduct background checks of anyone they arrested, even for low-level offenses, and notify ICE if they were found to lack legal status, Mr. Blakeman said.
“Our detectives are not out looking for illegal migrants,” Mr. Blakeman said at the time.
The county police commissioner, Patrick Ryder, who was also named in the lawsuit, said last week that officers would not participate in raids at houses of worship, schools or hospitals. And he said it was county policy not to ask victims or witnesses of crimes about their immigration status.
ICE officials argue that their partnerships with local police agencies and jails — known as 287(g) agreements — are crucial not just in picking up more undocumented immigrants, but also in easily and safely transferring them from local police custody to ICE custody.
The lawsuit gives little credence to the assurances from Nassau officials. The suit says the agreement they signed with ICE in March was “breathtakingly broad.”
“It allows N.C.P.D. officers to stop, question and arrest Nassau County residents — anywhere in the community — based solely on the officer’s ‘belief’ that they may be ‘in the United States in violation of law,’” the lawsuit says, referring to the Nassau County Police Department.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní is a Times reporter covering immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region.
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