Officials in East Hampton, one of the wealthiest towns in New York’s Hamptons enclave, are trying to reassure locals that noncriminal employees and neighbors are not subject to detention under state law amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on known criminal aliens.
At a community meeting on Wednesday, local authorities told concerned residents they do not have the authority to detain suspected illegal aliens for civil immigration offenses but will comply with federal criminal warrants.
East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen told community members at a public meeting that law-abiding migrants should still call police to report any crimes or emergencies without fearing deportation. Criminals, however, will be arrested.
Larsen told Fox News Digital over the phone Friday that he called the meeting to address residents’ concerns and prevent any “chaos” that could grow out of confusion about enforcement in the community.
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One concern is that people who may fear deportation would avoid reporting crimes like extortion and robbery, allowing thieves to prey upon them and remain on the streets.
“What caused me to call a meeting was the fact that people were calling me directly saying, ‘What’s going to happen? Are the local police going to be enforcing immigration laws?'” Larsen said. “The fact is that we don’t have the authority to hold anybody on administrative stuff, and there was already a lawsuit filed in Suffolk County on that, and there’s case law on it, and you’re not allowed to hold on civil or administrative holds.”
Police departments in New York are handcuffed by the state’s sanctuary laws — but they are not turning a blind eye to migrant criminals, East Hampton Village Police Chief Jeffrey Erickson added.
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“I will assist our federal counterparts as much as I can,” the chief told Fox News Digital. “It needs to be a judicial warrant, signed by a judge, the same as everybody else.”
Last month, U.S. District Judge William Kuntz, nominated by then-President Barack Obama in 2011, ordered Suffolk County to pay $60 million to illegal aliens for holding them in custody in violation of New York state’s sanctuary laws. The plaintiffs were held longer than they normally would have been jailed because Immigration and Customs Enforcement had lodged detainer requests.
The Town of East Hampton is one of 10 towns in New York’s Suffolk County, where a county-wide police department handles the most serious crimes and the county sheriff’s office runs the county jail. Within the town, there is also a Village of East Hampton, which has a small police force of its own, headed by Erickson.
Even though the detainers came from the federal government in the county lawsuit, the judge’s order puts only local taxpayers on the hook and federal agencies were not held liable for placing the detainer requests to begin with.
Some see it as a slap in the face to Suffolk voters, a majority of whom turned out in support of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, in part due to his record on immigration enforcement in the county, which had been a bastion of violent MS-13 gangsters at the start of his first term. County officials are appealing the ruling.
Under New York law, local authorities are only allowed to hold people accused of bail-eligible crimes, regardless of their immigration status. Most immigration offenses, except for the act of illegally crossing the border, are considered civil matters and thus not bail-eligible in the state.
“Nothing’s changed in our policy, except, we haven’t had any [federal criminal warrants] in the last administration,” Erickson said. “So when it comes again, we will assist our federal counterparts.”
Authorities are also disputing recent reporting that made it seem as though they were turning a blind eye to migrants in the local labor force.
“If anybody commits a crime, whether they’re legal or illegal, they will be arrested, and they will be prosecuted,” Erickson said. “It doesn’t matter what your status is. It’s not like we’re looking the other way.”
A nationwide crackdown involving federal and local law enforcement on targets that the Trump administration has identified as known criminal aliens, largely linked to drug trafficking, gang violence or terrorism, has netted thousands of arrests since the president took office on Jan. 20.
“Public safety threats and national security threats, they’re up first,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said in a recent video released by the White House.
At the Wednesday East Hampton meeting, residents peppered local leaders with questions about whether they can protect illegals in places like inside a church or at the workplace, according to a report in the East Hampton Star, which ran an editorial Thursday praising opposition to ICE detainers.
“Immigrant labor has helped keep the Hamptons humming for decades, longer if one includes late-19th and early-20th-century mostly Irish and Italians who worked on the estates of the oceanfront rich,” wrote paper owner David Rattray. “The first stirrings of a Spanish-speaking wave came in the 1980s, with just a handful of men arriving and finding work largely in the landscaping trade.”
In the area today, many immigrants, both legal and illegal, hold jobs in the landscaping, hospitality and construction industries.
One East Hampton local told Fox News Digital that the Hispanic community is the “bread and butter” of the labor force.
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East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo told town board members that his officers would also continue to cooperate with federal investigators on criminal warrants, which he said are rarely served in the area to begin with, and that civil offenses would not land an illegal immigrant in a local jail cell, according to the paper.
“I haven’t seen an ICE agent in this town in I can’t tell you how long,” he said.
In one exchange, however, he reportedly pointed to his gun and told residents that law enforcement officers do not interfere with each other’s lawful duties.
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“People who wear this and put this on don’t interfere with other people who wear this and put this on because then people die,” he said. “You don’t step in front of an Immigration Enforcement officer in uniform with a gun and a badge who’s taking his action. That’s for attorneys to get involved in, and that is for policies and procedures through the state to get involved.”
Sarlo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on Friday.
Authorities said they wanted to make sure all residents, legal or not, are comfortable calling 911 in an emergency.
“I don’t want anybody getting hurt,” said Larsen, himself a former police chief. “You have somebody who’s undocumented, and they’re driving a car, and a police car is trying to pull them over for running a stop sign. And all of a sudden, this turns into a pursuit and somebody gets hurt or killed.”
He said police in East Hampton are focused on apprehending criminals, not checking the immigration status of everyone they run into.
“You’ve gotta feel comfortable calling the local police,” Larsen said. “I don’t want chaos in our community. We still have to function.”
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