Police officers and other local law enforcement officials in New York are prohibited by law from arresting undocumented immigrants on behalf of federal authorities, a Brooklyn appeals court ruled Wednesday — a decision advocates touted as a “critical” deterrent to the “Trump deportation machine."
The ruling issued by the state Supreme Court’s second appellate division was based on the case of Susai Francis, an immigrant from India who was arrested on Long Island in June 2017 for driving drunk.
Francis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge, but when a judge ordered his release, he was taken back into custody by Suffolk County sheriffs who had received a detainer order from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Francis entered the country on a visitor’s visa in 1996 but never left and ICE was now looking to deport him. Francis, who’s the father of a U.S. citizen and had lived on Long Island for over two decades, was subsequently transferred to a federal detention facility in New Jersey pending his deportation.
