New York City’s new sheriff, Edwin Raymond, has drawn a line his predecessors rarely stated so plainly: his office will not help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement find and detain immigrants. In a recent interview with PIX11, Raymond — the son of Haitian immigrants and the first Haitian American to hold the post — said the Sheriff’s Office has no role in tracking down immigrants for ICE, and wants the public to understand the distinction between his agency and the kind of local policing that has, in other places, become an arm of federal immigration enforcement.
What Raymond is refusing has specific meaning. Cooperation with ICE, in practice, runs through a handful of channels: honoring immigration “detainers,” the requests that ask local authorities to hold someone up to 48 hours past their release so ICE can take custody; signing 287(g) agreements, which deputize local officers to act as immigration agents; and sharing information or tipping off federal agents about a person’s whereabouts or status. Raymond pledges to do none of it.
Much of that posture is already city law.
New York’s sanctuary rules, first adopted in 2011 and expanded in 2014, bar city agencies from honoring most ICE detainers, restrict sharing immigration-status information, and remove ICE’s office from the Rikers Island jail complex.
The Sheriff’s Office, the civil-enforcement arm of the Department of Finance, whose deputies serve court orders, carry out property and asset seizures, seize illegal firearms and enforce protection orders, is one of those covered agencies.
Raymond’s statement forecloses any drift and aligns his office squarely with that framework at a moment when it is under sustained attack.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that in roughly the first half of 2025, ICE lodged more than 6,000 detainer requests in New York City, a fourfold jump over prior levels, of which the city honored only a handful. Federal officials argue that when localities refuse detainers, ICE is forced to make more arrests out in the community, on streets, at courthouses and at airports, rather than quietly picking people up from jails. Border czar Tom Homan has vowed to “flood the streets” of New York with immigration agents. And the Trump administration’s Justice Department is suing to strike down a new state law, the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, that bans 287(g) agreements statewide as of Aug. 25; New York has countersued to defend it.
Raymond’s choice matters precisely because it is a choice.
Elsewhere in the state, sheriffs have gone the other way: Nassau County deputies have been deputized to carry out immigration enforcement under agreements with ICE, jails in counties such as Broome and Onondaga have held ICE detainees, and at least one New York sheriff publicly signed on to assist a federal crackdown. A sheriff’s stance toward ICE is not fixed by law alone — it reflects a decision about how far the office will go, which is why Raymond stating his so directly carries weight.
The underlying dispute is genuine and unresolved. Federal officials and their allies contend that sanctuary policies shield people with criminal records and endanger the public. Immigrant-rights groups and many law enforcement leaders counter that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility the government cannot force localities to perform, that courts have held local agencies need not honor administrative detainers issued without a judge’s warrant, and that residents are safer when victims and witnesses can approach local officers without fear of deportation. Raymond has placed his office on the latter side of that argument.
For the community he comes from, the timing sharpens the message. Raymond took office as Temporary Protected Status ended for more than 300,000 Haitians, stripping work permits and deportation protection and leaving many exposed to removal. A Haitian sheriff from East Flatbush declaring that his deputies will not be the ones knocking on immigrants’ doors is, for a frightened diaspora, a rare piece of reassurance from inside law enforcement itself.
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This article was originally written in English. Other language versions are produced using AI translation software, and errors are possible — the English version is authoritative. CTN also uses AI to convert text into audio.
