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A Lone New York Sheriff Signs Up to Aid Immigration Crackdown

Rensselaer County Sheriff Patrick A. Russo says he agreed to work with federal immigration authorities “to make the county safer.”Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

TROY, N.Y. — Here in the birthplace of “Uncle Sam,” a former steel town built by Irish and Italian arrivals, the local sheriff has embraced a federal program designed to catch undocumented immigrants in county jails.

His decision to do so — a first for New York State — in a jail that houses relatively few foreign-born inmates has outraged immigration activists, Democratic lawmakers and, notably, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose Albany statehouse office is in Troy’s backyard.

In January, the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office became one of only 75 in the country to sign an agreement allowing corrections officers to perform the functions of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as part of a program known as 287(g). The number of jurisdictions taking part has more than doubled since President Trump promoted the program in an executive order in January 2017.

The elected sheriff, Patrick Russo, a Republican with 43 years in local law enforcement, has thus inserted his mostly rural county 150 miles north of New York City into the national immigration debate.

“State police agencies do not and will not engage in such activity, and we are troubled that one local sheriff in the state has decided to participate,” said Alphonso David, the chief counsel to Governor Cuomo, whose office sits six miles south of Troy. The agreement, he said, is “contrary to the public policy and values of our state.”

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County legislators approved the agreement last week by a 13-6 vote along party lines.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

The program in Rensselaer County has yet to start. Under it, ICE will train two staff corrections officers to identify, interrogate and turn over inmates for being in the country illegally — including some who may still be awaiting trial on criminal charges. The officers will still be subject to ICE oversight.

Governor Cuomo and activists warned that 287(g) undermines trust between immigrants and law enforcement and makes immigrants less likely to report crimes, the reason many police chiefs across the country cite for not participating.

In an interview, the sheriff said that he was unaware of Rensselaer’s unique status in the state.

“I was kind of surprised when I heard that,” Mr. Russo, 65, said from the sprawling county jail complex on the banks of the Hudson River in South Troy. “Because, to me, this is another tool in the toolbox, and I am allowed to reach into the toolbox to make the county safer.”

A spokesman for ICE applauded the decision. “The partnerships with local law enforcement are invaluable force multipliers for ICE in the place we can be most effective in the fight to enhance public safety — local jails,” said the spokesman, Khaalid Walls.

Census statistics from 2016 show only about 5 percent of residents are foreign-born in the county (a figure that may not count undocumented immigrants), and most reside in Troy, the county seat.

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Protesters, including Nadia Tell, 11, who arrived with her mother and sister from nearby Albany, opposed the decision to join the 287(g) program.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

“I could be wrong, but I don’t see a big immigrant population here who would be affected,” Sheriff Russo said.

While there could be some small financial benefit for the county, since ICE would pay the jail for any detainees, Sheriff Russo said his primary reason for taking part was to ensure that the jail did not release dangerous criminals back into the community.

He cited a 2016 double homicide of two residents who were Mexican citizens in North Troy. The four people charged were also Mexican nationals, three of whom are in the Rensselaer jail now.

In the county’s application to take part in the program, it listed the top five crimes committed by foreign-born individuals as petty larceny, criminal mischief, criminal possession of a controlled substance and of a weapon, and vehicle offenses.

Today, Troy is home to Lebanese and Moroccan cafes, as well as the Korean restaurant Sunhee’s Farm and Kitchen, where the kitchen staff is made up of refugees from Burma, Afghanistan and South Sudan. The 27-year-old owner, Jinah Kim, a leader in the nascent immigrant activist movement here, offers English classes for them after lunch service.

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Only about 5 percent of county residents are immigrants. Myo Myo, left, from Burma, and Both Duany, from South Sudan, work at Sunhee’s Farm and Kitchen in Troy.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

The city’s economy revolves around Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, technology start-ups and incubators, and it is represented by six legislators, all Democrats; the hill towns swung the county to Mr. Trump.

Patriotism is packaged in Troy, with signs and murals reminding people of its most famous resident: Samuel Wilson, who boxed meat for the Army during the War of 1812. As the congressionally approved story goes, he stamped his initials on the crates, which soldiers jokingly said came from “Uncle Sam.”

The 287(g) program comes from Uncle Sam, too. It refers to a section of a 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton.

“There’s a lot of rumors out there that we are going to go out and do sweeps,” Mr. Russo said. “The agreement doesn’t allow us to do that.”

But activists and lawmakers are concerned that the sheriff’s seal of approval will embolden patrol officers to act, informally, as immigration agents, too.

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Troy’s most famous former resident: Samuel Wilson, who boxed meat for the Army during the War of 1812. He is said to be the namesake for Uncle Sam.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

It sends the message that “they are out to send into deportation anyone who gets arrested for any incident,” said Melanie Trimble, the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Region chapter.

Sarah Rogerson, who directs the immigration law clinic at Albany Law School, said she was concerned that the discretionary powers afforded the two officers could lead to civil rights abuses, such as not having a translator on hand.

Sheriff Russo cited the potential danger of the MS-13 gang as a reason for signing the agreement. According to the State Police, there is no MS-13 activity in the county. “And we want to keep it that way,” Mr. Russo said.

Recently, two of the larger counties in the tristate area decided not to participate in the program. Hudson County, in New Jersey, withdrew in part because of fierce political pressure, and because not enough prisoners were circulating through the jail because of New Jersey’s bail reform law.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Office applied for the program last fall when it thought that it could generate revenue. But Sheriff Craig Apple Sr. withdrew amid public opposition.

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Troy is located less than ten miles north of Albany. Its economy revolves around the local university, as well as technology start-ups and incubators.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

Edward F. Manny III, a Democrat and the deputy minority leader of the Rensselaer County Legislature, said, “If nobody else in this state signed it, what do we know that they don’t?”

Mr. Russo likened his office’s participation to other lucrative federal partnerships, as with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The 225,000-square-foot jail, built in 1992 and expanded in 2009, had 331 inmates as of March 13, 130 of them federal prisoners; the federal government pays $97 a day for each of them. The same rate would be applied to inmates housed under ICE custody.

The application to the 287(g) program said that between two and six foreign-born inmates pass through the jail in a month; 3,000 people a year go through the jail.

The application also stated that on average, Troy receives no more than one “detainer” request per month to hold inmates for ICE after completion of their criminal sentence. In 2017, according to the jail, there were no detainers requested; since January 2018, the jail has honored six requests.

Asked why he did not hold public forums when applying for the program, Mr. Russo said he did not want to breed violent protests. “I’m just not going to host public forums because they become Chinese fire drills,” he said.

The Rensselaer County Legislature passed a resolution last week in support of the agreement by a 13-to-6 vote along party lines, as opponents denounced the sheriff from the podium and protested outside the legislative chambers. Mr. Russo, tall and broad-shouldered, sat stone-faced inside.

The sheriff’s grandfather came from Naples and opened an Italian grocery store in Troy after arriving in 1909. Rocco DeFazio, 66, the town’s unofficial historian, whose own grocery and pizza restaurant lies a little more than a mile from the jail, said he did not agree with the ICE partnership. But he wanted to correct any misconceptions that his friend could be Troy’s version of Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona who was convicted (and later pardoned by Mr. Trump) of criminal contempt for his treatment of Latinos.

“I grew up with Pat,” Mr. DeFazio said. “He’s a very considerate guy. And he’s not a hardened racist. He’s not. I think it’s a little over his head.”

A correction was made on 
March 20, 2018

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article incorrectly identified where a cook is from. Myo Myo is from Burma, not Nepal.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Sheriff Joins Federal Immigration Crackdown, in a First for the State. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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