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Kathy Hochul’s Challenger Is All In On ICE

9 5
27.01.2026

The storm in Minneapolis that we New Yorkers have been watching — the waves of protests; the masked federal agents chasing, swarming, beating, and arresting men, women, and children; the horrific on-camera shooting of unarmed citizens at point-blank range — could be coming to our city and state soon. This year’s gubernatorial election is shaping up as in part a choice between continued resistance to President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, as Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed, or full support of Trump’s expulsions, as Hochul’s likely Republican opponent, Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, has promised.

Hochul has called on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to quit or be fired. “Go after the drug lords and the human traffickers and the worst of the worst, like you promised. Why are you going after high-school students and teachers and people who work in City Hall? My God. It’s gone just too far,” Hochul told me recently. “When you say you’re going after the worst of the worst, the hardened criminals, they’re lying about that. That is a flat-out lie.”

Hochul is proposing legislation that would allow New Yorkers to sue Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Border Patrol agents who overstep their Constitutional limits, and is calling for a law banning ICE activity in day-care centers, houses of worship, and hospitals and other sensitive locations.

Blakeman wants to do more or less the opposite, and has been active in helping ICE agents find and arrest immigrants in Nassau County. “We have the most comprehensive agreement with ICE in the United States,” he told me. “I’ve dedicated 50 jail cells to ICE, and I’ve dedicated ten........

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