CHAPPAQUA — Rep. Mike Lawler joined gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman and other campaigning Republicans to condemn New York's new limit on police cooperation with immigration enforcement and spotlight two recent arrests in Westchester and Putnam counties.
A line of speakers took turns delivering often fiery comments at a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 6, outside the New Castle Town Hall and court, where one of the suspects was arraigned last week.
The focus of their ire was a state law enacted this year that prohibits local police and jails from entering into formal cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Such pacts were rare in New York compared to in other states, but their ban has become another flashpoint
in the heated partisan clash over ICE in the midst of the Trump administration's mass deportation push.
"Sanctuary policies are a disaster for our country," Lawler said. "They should be prohibited. And I support legislation at the federal level to do that."
He pointed to last week's arrests of two men said to be living illegally in the U.S. after previously being deported.
One was Diego Rodriguez-Ordonez, 24, who was arrested in Kent on Sept. 29 after stealing a beer from a gas station and wrestling with a clerk who tried to stop him, according to police. He also had kicked in a bank door earlier that night and was arrested again the following evening for forcibly touching a woman on a train in Southeast, police officials said.
Rodriguez-Ordonez is now being held in the Putnam County Correctional Facility in lieu of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond. He has had 16 arrests with eight convictions since 2024, according to Lawler's campaign.
The other suspect was Juan Guambana, 50, who was arrested Oct. 1 and charged with six felony counts of unlawful surveillance after police say they caught him watching a woman through her bathroom window. They were monitoring her house after she reported seeing a man looking in her window in the morning on multiple occasions.
Guambana was released after his arraignment and is due back in New Castle town court on Nov. 5.
"Our police were focused on real crime last week," Lawler said. "They had both of these men in handcuffs within hours. What they need from Albany is a way to work with ICE to get criminal, illegal immigrants out of our neighborhoods, and the governor just outlawed it."
Conley voices support for law enforcement
Cait Conley, the Army combat veteran challenging Lawler for New York's 17th Congressional District, said in a statement to the USA TODAY Network that the two suspects featured at the press conference should be deported. She also criticized as inadequate the border control by the Biden administration in which she worked as a national security official.
“These individuals, who have committed dangerous crimes, need to be deported immediately," Conley said. "Our government has a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our communities, and that means undoing Biden's failure and securing our border so that violent criminals cannot get into our country and communities. As a former military police officer, I stand behind our law enforcement and their efforts to keep our communities safe.”
None of the law enforcement agencies involved in the arrests — or any others in the Hudson Valley — had formal cooperation deals with ICE, known as 287(g) agreements, that New York has now prohibited through part of the budget Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in May. The ban invalidated ICE contracts with 12 police departments and county jails and is being challenged in court by a group of sheriffs.
Blakeman is the county executive for Long Island's Nassau County, which had two of those 12 agreements to cover the county's police department and jail. He has touted those agencies' close relationship with ICE and deplored the severing of the contracts, calling it one of his saddest days in office.
At the press conference with Lawler in Westchester County, Blakeman said the ICE collaboration had enabled the county to expel 2,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Those arrests were made without raiding any schools, churches or day care centers, he noted.
"Kathy Hochul talks about atrocities committed by ICE," Blakeman said. "She is a liar. There have been no atrocities committed by ICE in New York."
Reaction to ICE activity under Trump
The 287(g) ban was one of several ICE constraints New York adopted after a wave of public outrage following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis in January. Immigrant advocates felt New York's ban didn't go far enough, since so few departments in New York had such agreements and prohibiting them left police free to continue working informally with ICE by alerting them or holding people at their request.
Hochul and other supporters of banning 287(g) agreements, including Conley, have argued police should be left to fight crime in their communities without sharing the federal government's role of immigration enforcement. The section of the budget that enacted it was titled, "Local Crimes, Local Cops."
A spokesman for New York's Democratic Party fired back at Blakeman and Lawler after their press conference.
“Mike Lawler and Bruce Blakeman would rather shill for Donald Trump than keep New Yorkers safe," party spokesman Addison Dick said. "While Governor Hochul invested $4 billion in policing, got 26,000 illegal guns off New York streets, and brought crime to record lows, Mike Lawler was voting to defund police and Bruce Blakeman was defending ICE killing American citizens.”
Gormans take part in the press conference
Joining Lawler and the others at the press conference were Tom and Jessica Gorman, the Westchester couple whose daughter, Sheridan, was fatally shot in Chicago in March, by a man authorities say is an undocumented immigrant. They have made several appearances with Lawler to speak out about their daughter's death and denounce sanctuary policies, including at a Trump-Lawler rally in Rockland County in May and at Trump's midterm convention in Dallas in September.
"This is not complicated," Jessica Gorman said in an emotional speech in which she urged all New Yorkers to vote for Republicans on Nov. 3. "Protect innocent people, protect our families and protect public safety first. I'm asking all Democrats, all independents, to take a look. Look at your kids tonight. What if they were the person that was sexually assaulted on the train to Southeast this weekend?"
Asked about Sheridan Gorman at a public appearance on Tuesday, Oct. 6, Hochul said it was "horrible to contemplate" what her family has endured.
"But nothing in New York State law prevents cooperation with ICE," she said. "Our law enforcement works with ICE to remove violent criminals. This was in Chicago what happened to this young woman. Our laws do not allow for criminals to have sanctuary. And anything to the contrary is a mischaracterization of New York State law."
Federal agents have arrested more than 19,000 immigrants in New York since Trump returned to office in 2025, the USA TODAY Network reported in September based on ICE data compiled by researchers at the Deportation Data Project. Two thirds of them had no criminal records or pending charges. Supporters of the crackdown say it's overdue enforcement of immigration laws, while opponents say it's terrorizing communities and separating families.
Other speakers at the Westchester rally include Saritha Komatireddy, the Republican and former federal prosecutor who's challenging state Attorney General Letitia James on Nov. 3; state Assemblyman Matt Slater, who represents Putnam County and part of northern Westchester; and Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Lawler, Blakeman blast NY limit on ICE help at Westchester event
