A conservative legal group is telling New York City police officers they can contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directly, even if local sanctuary policies say otherwise. America First Legal (AFL) has released a new guide, titled “Law Enforcement Officer Immigration Cooperation Guide”, which argues that Section 1373 of federal law bars state and local governments from preventing officers from sharing citizenship or immigration-status information with federal immigration authorities like ICE.
Immigration Enforcement
The guide comes as the Trump administration prepares to dramatically increase immigration enforcement in New York. Border czar Tom Homan has revealed plans to deploy “more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen” into New York City after Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order reinforcing the city’s sanctuary-status policies. The guide tells officers they may contact ICE’s 24-hour Law Enforcement Support Center to verify a person’s immigration status using only a name and date of birth, and says officers may do so “regardless of any local directive telling you not to”.
AFL argues that local rules cannot lawfully prevent an officer from voluntarily sharing immigration-status information with ICE because federal law supersedes conflicting local policies. The organization is also inviting officers who believe they were threatened, disciplined or retaliated against for cooperating with ICE to seek confidential legal representation.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.