(The Center Square) – A Republican-led House committee is accusing New York City prosecutors of endangering the public by refusing to honor hundreds of ICE immigration detainers.
In a report, released Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement said the New York City Police Department has received nearly 10,000 detainers for immigrants suspected of living in the U.S. illegally in the past year but honored none of them because of state and local “sanctuary” policies.
From July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2026, the NYPD received 20,255 detainers and did not honor a single one, the report’s authors claimed. In the same time period, the New York City Department of Corrections received nearly 3,000 detainers that weren’t honored, according to the report.
What’s more, the GOP lawmakers accused District Attorneys Melinda Katz, Darcel Clark, Alvin Bragg, Eric Gonzalez, and Michael McMahon of ensuring prosecutors in their offices “give preferential treatment to foreign nationals based solely on their immigration status – all so that criminal aliens can avoid deportation and remain in the United States indefinitely.”
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, a Democrat, has hired a “Immigration Specialist” to help “dangerous foreign nationals avoid immigration consequences for their criminality,” the report’s authors claimed.
“Recognizing that a broad range of criminal convictions may trigger severe immigration consequences for criminal aliens, the Immigration Specialist helps Assistant District Attorneys navigate through plea options and assist in framing dispositions that will prevent unwanted immigration consequences,” the report stated.
The. “New York City: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies” report highlights what it’s authors called the “devastating effects” on public safety by New York City’s sanctuary policies, and “how the chief prosecutors for New York City’s five boroughs treat illegal aliens differently than American citizens.”
That included the murder of a 92-year-old woman in Queens in 2020 by an “illegal alien” who had been released by local law enforcement after being arrested two months earlier, despite being sought by federal immigration authorities. In another case, an Ecuadorian national living in the U.S. illegally was released by the NYPD, despite having been arrested for sexually assaulting a child, the report claimed.
New York prosecutors have previously pushed back against the Judiciary’s Committee’s investigation, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that led to the report. The Staten Island District Attorney’s office called the report “flagrantly false and patently political” and said the office “has and will continue to ask ICE to let us prosecute and convict criminals before they deport them because Congress has failed to secure our borders.”
“That is the only way to guarantee our victims justice and to keep our communities safe,” the DA’s office said. “If you believe in law and order, that’s the only way to do the job..”
House lawmakers pointed to New York City ‘sanctuary’ laws that restrict cooperation with federal authorities on immigration detainers, and the Local Cops Local Crimes Act signed by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, which outlaws so-called 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and bans ICE agents from wearing masks during enforcement operations, among other restrictions.
New York City saw a surge of hundreds of thousands of migrants during the Biden administration that overwhelmed the city’s shelter system. The city has spent more than $12 billion over the past several years on housing, food and necessities for the new arrivals, prompting threats from the Trump administration to pull back federal funding, the report’s authors noted.
“But New York and its leaders are not outliers,” the report’s authors wrote. “They are indicative of a modern, radical, socialist Democrat Party that seeks to erase national borders and place illegal alien criminals ahead of law-abiding American citizens. The policies supported by these Democrats, including sanctuary policies, will have negative and lasting consequences for Americans.”
