By Staff Reporter
LOCKPORT — The Niagara County Legislature will vote Tuesday on whether to sue New York State over a new law that limits how local government workers can help federal immigration agents. The resolution argues the law protects “illegal non-citizen voting.” But the law’s own text appears to leave room for exactly the kind of election work the county says it bans.
The measure, Resolution CW-016-26, is on the agenda for the Legislature’s Oct. 20 meeting at the county courthouse in Lockport. It comes from the Committee of the Whole, which takes it up the same day. It would direct the county attorney to “investigate, engage counsel and commence any and all litigation” to block Section 996-a of the General Municipal Law. It names as possible defendants the State of New York, the governor, the Assembly and the Senate.
What the county says the law does
The five-page resolution builds its case on voting. It cites a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, federal motor-voter rules and New York’s 2019 Green Light Law, which lets people get a driver’s license without proving legal status. It argues that law “created a path and increased the likelihood for illegal voting by non-United State citizens in New York State.”
It then says Section 996-a, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May, “forbids Niagara County municipal employees, including employees of the Niagara County Board of elections from disclosing voter registration information to an immigration authority.”
“Such protection of such illegal non-citizen voting by New York State Governor Kathleen M. Hochul should not be condoned and/or tolerated,” the resolution states.
The lawsuit, it says, would “permit municipal employees to cooperate with federal immigration officials in efforts to insure that no person who is not a citizen of the United States in any manner casts a ballot for any elective race in Niagara County.”
What the law actually says
A reading of the statute raises questions about that premise. Section 996-a does bar local employees from giving an immigration authority a person’s name, address and other personal details. But the same sentence makes an exception “when registering an individual to vote and other election related matters.” A separate subdivision lets workers ask about citizenship for the same reason.
The law also says it shall not be read to stop local governments from “sending to or receiving from the United States department of homeland security” information on a person’s citizenship or immigration status under 8 U.S.C. § 1373. That is the federal statute that bars states and cities from blocking such exchanges. Another subdivision allows compliance with federal court orders, judicial warrants, or “as otherwise required by law.”
In other words, the specific harm the resolution describes, a county election worker being barred from flagging a suspected noncitizen voter, is not plainly what the statute says. The resolution does not quote those exceptions. The county’s lawyers would have to argue that they are too narrow or too vague to protect election staff in practice.
Why Albany passed it
Section 996-a was part of a package of immigration measures in the state budget enacted in May. It also banned 287(g) agreements that deputize local police for immigration work, kept agents out of non-public areas of schools, hospitals and shelters without a judicial warrant, and barred officers from wearing masks.
“From day one, I have been clear: Flagrant abuses of power by ICE will not stand in New York,” Ms. Hochul said in a May 28 statement. “States like New York can and must be a guardrail and national leader against ICE overreach.”
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat, said the package “will prevent local officials from carrying out federal immigration policy.” Assemblymember Karines Reyes, a Bronx Democrat and prime sponsor of the New York for All Act, called it “a resounding declaration that New York refuses to be complicit in the federal government’s campaign of fear.”
A fight already in court
The county would not be the first to challenge the package. The U.S. Justice Department sued New York in June over the mask ban, the officer-identification rule and the 287(g) ban.
“New York’s anti-law enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the time.
The results so far have been split. On Aug. 3, U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino blocked the mask and identification rules but let the 287(g) ban stand. She found the state had shown that ban was an “appropriate means of furthering New York’s legitimate interests in protecting public welfare and choosing how state and local resources are expended,” WXXI News reported. The Justice Department’s suit did not target Section 996-a’s limits on sharing personal information, as described in its announcement.
Niagara County has been here before
Niagara County sued Albany over the Green Light Law in 2019, filing on its own in state court rather than joining other counties. The county clerk and both election commissioners signed on.
“They can check the box that they are here as a U.S. citizen. They can register to vote and there is not one safeguard anywhere throughout the voter system to catch them,” County Attorney Claude Joerg said at an Oct. 2019 signing ceremony, according to WBFO. Six years later, the Green Light Law is still on the books. A separate federal challenge by Erie County Clerk Michael Kearns was thrown out.
The same two election commissioners who signed the 2019 papers, Democrat Lora A. Allen and Republican Jennifer A. Sandonato, are up for new four-year terms on Tuesday’s agenda.
The evidence question
The resolution offers one example of noncitizen voting: a 2019 floor remark by Suffolk County Assemblyman Doug Smith about cases there. The resolution itself notes those cases happened before the Green Light Law passed. It cites no case in Niagara County.
Studies have found such voting to be rare. A Brennan Center for Justice survey of election officials in 42 jurisdictions found about 30 suspected noncitizen votes out of 23.5 million cast in the 2016 general election. Registering or voting while not a citizen is already a felony under state election law and a federal crime, as the resolution itself points out.
Questions for Tuesday
Several questions are not answered in the agenda packet. It does not say what outside counsel would cost, which budget line would pay for it, or whether the Board of Elections has ever been asked by federal immigration officials for voter records and turned them down because of the new law. It also does not explain how the county would show it has been harmed, the question of legal standing that has tripped up past challenges by county officials.
The Legislature meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the courthouse, 175 Hawley St. The agenda allows public comment on agenda items before the vote. The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the Legislature, the Board of Elections and the governor’s office for comment. Any responses will be added to this story.
Featured photo: The Niagara County Courthouse in Lockport, where the Legislature meets. Photo by J. Passepartout via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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