By Hank Russell
In the wake of the fatal shooting of a Minnesota woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, Governor Kathy Hochul is calling for legislation that would make it easier for state residents to sue ICE for violating their constitutional rights.
On January 7, Renee Good was told by ICE agents to move her car because it was blocking the street. According to CNN, Good attempted to move her car, but an ICE agent standing in front of her vehicle shot and killed her. The agent, Jonathan Ross, was hit by the car and was hospitalized for internal injuries, according to The Daily Express.
There was also debate between local officials and the White House regarding what happened. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Tim Walz said Good was a mother and poet who was peacefully protesting, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Good of using her vehicle as a weapon and committing “an act of domestic terrorism” by hitting the officer.
During her January 13 State of the State address, Hochul introduced a proposal that would authorize individuals to bring state-level civil actions against federal officers who violate New Yorkers’ U.S. constitutional rights, consistent with the same legal standards that already exist elsewhere in the law. Notably, state and local officers already are subject to these standards, including qualified immunity that protects law enforcement officers who act within the bounds of clearly established law, Hochul said.
This legislation would ensure accountability for federal officers under those standards. By aligning state law with existing federal civil rights frameworks, this proposal reinforces constitutional protections and provides New Yorkers with a meaningful legal recourse when federal authority is unconstitutionally abused in New York.
“It is abhorrent what we’re seeing [from ICE],” Hochul told Errol Louis on NY1’s Inside City Hall on January 14. “And they’re intended to intimidate people.”
She told Louis that she once asked an ICE officer why he was wearing a mask while local and state law enforcement officers did not. “They said, because they’re being doxed and harassed. I said, ‘But I’ve got FBI agents, I’ve got police officers and State police all over the state who are out there on the front lines, and they’re not doing this either. They don’t think they need to.’” So this is another level.”
Hochul also blasted ICE for falsely claiming that they are going after “the worst of the worst,” calling it “a flat-out lie.”
In response, Bruce Blakeman — the Nassau County executive who is running against Hochul for governor this year — said Hochul’s view of ICE is “completely misplaced and out of proportion with what’s really going on in the real world and common sense people understand this,” according to Politico.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Long Island Life & Politics, “Once again, Governor Hochul continues to smear law enforcement who are simply enforcing the rule of law and are putting their lives on the line to remove violent criminals from New York because Kathy Hochul refuses to do her job. DHS law enforcement officers follow the law and the U.S. Constitution.”
McLaughlin noted, “Across the country, violent rioters and terrorists have opened fire on law enforcement officers, thrown rocks, bottles, and fireworks at them, slashed the tires of their vehicles, and have destroyed multiple law enforcement vehicles. Others have chosen to ignore commands and have attempted to impede law enforcement operations and used their vehicles as weapons against our officers.”
She said ICE agents have been “routinely … doxxed, stalked and threatened by vicious gangs and unhinged activists. Despite these grave threats and dangerous situations, our law enforcement shows incredible restraint and professionalism in exhausting all options before any kind of non-lethal force is used.”
In response to Hochul’s call for recourse for the anti-ICE demonstrators and protestors, McLaughlin asked, “What about recourse for the victims of illegal aliens?”