Nassau enters controversial ‘task force’ agreement with ICE

Earlier this month, the Nassau County Police Department officially signed an agreement to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that gives deputized officers broad authority to question residents’ citizenship status and make arrests without a judicial warrant. The department agreed to a “task force” model – the most expansive type of agreement with federal immigration authorities and one that former President Barack Obama discontinued over a decade ago, only for President Donald Trump to bring back.

Last month, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced that local law enforcement in his Long Island county would work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. He said that 10 detectives would be deputized to carry out immigration law. At the time, officials gave sweeping generalizations about what deputized detectives could do, but they did not offer specifics about the kind of agreement law enforcement would enter into.

Contracts known as 287(g) agreements allow local law enforcement to formalize a working relationship with ICE and can even permit municipal police officers to act as ICE agents. In New York state, such an agreement is the only way for local authorities to cooperate with immigration agents and honor detainer requests to hold undocumented immigrants without a judicial warrant. The agreements have three types: the jail enforcement, warrant service officer and task force models. 

ICE discontinued the use of the task force model in 2012, following investigations and controversies surrounding racial profiling. Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies in Arizona infamously conducted massive sweeps of Latino neighborhoods under the agreement’s authority, which prompted a 2011 investigation by the federal Department of Justice. The task force model remained unused during the first Trump administration and was only revived earlier this year. Since then, many municipalities, mostly in red states, have entered into new 287(g) agreements to use the expansive model.

Immigration advocates were deeply troubled to learn that Nassau was indeed making use of the controversial model. “The officers who are certified have the absolute full authority to stop, detain, search people based on their belief that the person is not lawfully present in the country,” said Andrew Case, supervising attorney at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “And this power, when given to local law enforcement, invariably led to racial profiling.” He added that it’s especially concerning that Nassau is “engaging in a wildly over aggressive policy” so close to New York City.

Murad Awadweh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the move from Nassau County a “publicity stunt” that will inevitably put Nassau residents in danger. “What we see people like Bruce Blakeman and Donald Trump doing is trying to harm as many people as possible, participate within family separation, gutting local communities and harming their own economy,” he said. Tensions are especially high, as the ICE arrest of a prominent  Palestinian activist and green card-holder at Columbia University has sparked outrage.

Although representatives from both the Nassau County Police Department – the county’s main law enforcement agency – and the Nassau County Sheriff’s Department attended the announcement last month, only the sheriff’s department initially signed an agreement with ICE. Blakeman held a press conference to announce its forthcoming agreement with ICE on Feb. 4, though the sheriff’s department did not actually finalize the 287(g) agreement until Feb. 28. ICE and the sheriff’s department agreed to the warrant service officer model, which permits local law enforcement to carry out administrative warrants arrests at local jail facilities but does not permit officers to enforce immigration law more broadly. 

Early last month, independent journalist and City & State contributor Felipe De La Hoz said that county officials had confirmed to him that Nassau was not entering into a task force model agreement. And the initial document signed by the sheriff’s department seemed to back that up. But that changed on March 10, when the Nassau County Police Department and ICE finalized a second 287(g) agreement to use the task force model. A spokesperson for Blakeman did not return multiple requests for comment, and a detective from the Nassau County Police Department was not immediately available to comment on the agreement.

At last month’s press conference, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder seemed to allude to the task force model when he told a reporter that deputized detectives would be allowed to question residents on their immigration status, which would not be allowed under the warrant service officer model. The task force model will grant local detectives sweeping authority, enabling them to serve immigration arrest warrants, maintain custody over detained immigrants and even make warrantless arrests in some instances. But Ryder and Blakeman said last month that officers will only work with ICE agents for targeted enforcement rather than engaging in broad raids. 

So far, only one other New York municipality has entered into a 287(g) agreement. Rensselaer County entered into a jail enforcement model agreement – the least intensive of the three models – during the first Trump administration in 2020. The two new agreements with Nassau law enforcement are the first ones in the state since Trump took office for a second time.