Guest Column: Why I oppose sanctuary laws

Minerva Perez’s recent letter (“Open letter to Congressman Nick LaLota,” July 2) asks me to identify the specific provisions of East Hampton’s new sanctuary law that concern me. I appreciate the opportunity to answer, and I will, but her letter misses the larger point.

For the past several years, Americans have watched one far-left immigration policy after another make an already broken system worse: canceling Remain in Mexico, loosening asylum standards, expanding the use of parole and providing taxpayer-funded hotel rooms and health care to migrants here illegally. Each policy was defended as reasonable on its own. Together, they helped fuel the worst immigration crisis in our nation’s history.

Ms. Perez represents a far-left immigration organization whose policy agenda would substantially reduce immigration enforcement. Those proposals have been widely rejected, including by Democratic town supervisors in Southold, Riverhead and Southampton.

Yet, East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village stand alone among Long Island’s 13 towns and 96 incorporated villages in adopting Ms. Perez’s Mamdani-like sanctuary policies that restrict cooperation between local officials and federal immigration authorities. Ms. Perez and her organization advocated for these first-on-Long Island policies while the East Hampton Town supervisor and East Hampton Village mayor were competing against one another in a Democratic primary for town supervisor. Both candidates had every incentive to appeal to the party’s most progressive voters, and Ms. Perez seized the opportunity to advance her agenda. That may have been effective politics, but it was bad public policy.

Ms. Perez points to language recognizing federal authority and permitting cooperation in certain circumstances. I do not dispute that those statements appear in the laws. My concern is with the operative provisions, which make cooperation with federal immigration authorities more difficult than it otherwise would be. Immigration enforcement is safest and most effective when local, state and federal law enforcement work together, especially when local police and correctional officials can safely transfer criminal illegal immigrants into federal custody rather than forcing federal agents to locate and arrest them later in neighborhoods, workplaces or other public settings.

The practical consequences are real.

Imagine federal authorities conducting a lawful civil immigration operation involving individuals with final orders of removal. East Hampton Town officers who are already on scene are now barred from providing routine assistance, such as helping secure a perimeter or directing traffic, simply because the operation is nominally civil rather than criminal.

Or consider an illegal immigrant arrested by East Hampton Village PD on a DUI or domestic violence charge who is also subject to a final order of removal. Under Ms. Perez’s law, local officials are prohibited from facilitating a transfer to federal authorities, and that individual may be released before federal agents traveling from “up-island” can assume custody. Instead of a safe, controlled hand-off at a secure facility, federal agents may have to locate and arrest that individual later in the community.

Or imagine federal law enforcement lawfully seeking access to locally maintained East Hampton Town license plate reader data to locate an individual subject to a final order of removal, who also has sexual assault charges pending in Queens County. Under these sanctuary laws, local officials are prohibited from using that resource to assist federal civil immigration enforcement, depriving federal agents of information that could otherwise help them safely complete a lawful operation.

This is not merely a disagreement over legal language. It is a fundamental policy disagreement.

There is also a broader philosophical difference at work. Sanctuary policies may be popular among some far-left politicians in New York City, but Long Island is not New York City. Generations of families — including many parents and grandparents of today’s residents — left the city to build communities rooted in public safety, strong neighborhoods and respect for the rule of law. Long Islanders understand that our nation’s immigration laws were enacted by Congress and signed by presidents of both parties. Those laws should be enforced, and local governments should help, not hinder, the law enforcement officers charged with carrying them out.

That is why communities led by Republicans, Democrats and Independents — including the Democratic-led East End towns of Riverhead, Southampton, and Southold — have rejected sanctuary policies because they recognize that public safety is strengthened, not weakened, when law enforcement agencies maintain appropriate cooperation.

That is also why I have made clear that, moving forward, I cannot support discretionary Community Project Funding for municipalities that voluntarily adopt policies moving in the opposite direction of sound public safety. We should discourage these policies from spreading beyond these two jurisdictions. Taxpayers should expect their federal representatives to encourage cooperation between law enforcement agencies, not reward policies that make their jobs more difficult.

Reasonable people can disagree about immigration policy. But after witnessing the consequences of the far-left immigration experiments of recent years, I believe Long Island should not repeat those mistakes.

Mr. LaLota represents New York’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.