Jan 26
2026
Ryan bars city cooperation with federal immigration
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Ryan signs the order flanked by deputy mayors, advocates and NY Assembly members Jon Rivera, left, and Pat Burke, right. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker
City of Buffalo police officers and other employees are barred from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, according to an executive order Mayor Sean Ryan signed Monday morning.
That means city employees cannot:
- Inquire about a person’s immigration status while administering a city service.
- Provide access to databases or other records to civil immigration authorities that are not already public.
- Make facilities available to immigration authorities that aren’t otherwise already public spaces.
- Participate in the enforcement of federal civil immigration enforcement.
The order explicitly bars the city from participating in Immigration and Custom Enforcement law enforcement cooperation program, known as 287(g). It also directs heads of city departments, agencies and commissions to inform the mayor if they receive a request for immigration information from a federal agency.
The order does not cover federal criminal immigration enforcement, meaning police and city employees will comply with authorities if presented with a judicial warrant. Under the Trump administration to date, the majority of migrants arrested have been accused of civil violations, federal data shows. The majority of ICE detainees, too, have no criminal record or charges.
“We have an unaccountable federal police force that’s terrorizing U.S. cities and U.S. citizens,” Ryan said Monday of ICE, Border Patrol and other federal agencies that have deployed in cities from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine.
“It’s time for the federal government to put a stop to it. For now, we’re controlling in the City of Buffalo what we can control.”
Ryan on Monday also voiced support for state legislation known as New York For All, which would prohibit cooperation with federal immigration authorities statewide and nullify 287(g) agreements municipalities may have with ICE.
“I think it’s important to have a statewide approach, so every municipality in New York State has a uniform approach,” he said.
Read the executive order here.
The executive order adds Buffalo to a growing list of cities and states that are barring police and other public employees from working with ICE and other federal immigration agencies. In New York, Rochester, Syracuse and New York City have all passed “sanctuary city” laws or put similar rules in place to bar such cooperation. Other cities, including Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco, have similarly put noncooperation measures in place.
The Trump administration, in turn, has said it will target those cities. An April executive order mandated the Attorney General create a list of so-called sanctuary cities and notify them that they are in “defiance of federal immigration law enforcement.” The order further stated that cities on the AG’s list could have federal funds or contracts canceled.
The list, last updated in October, includes New York as a whole as well as New York City and Rochester.
In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said “Buffalo will be less safe as a direct result of Mayor Sean Ryan’s executive order.”
“When politicians bar local law enforcement from working with us, that is when we have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities,” the spokesperson said.
Ryan on Monday said he didn’t know “what sanctuary city means.”
“I know it’s often used as a pejorative, as an insult,” he said. “I’ll just call this an order that makes everyone who lives in the City of Buffalo know that they are safe, or they can avail themselves of city services.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomCities that have not yet landed on the federal government’s list, however, have also been targeted. Last year, for example, the Maine legislature passed a law set to take effect this summer that would bar state and local police from working with ICE or other immigration agencies. ICE announced last week it would deploy to the cities of Portland and Cumberland.
Asked if his executive order would put a target on Buffalo, Ryan said he couldn’t let that prevent him from taking action.
“I can’t not act to protect the people of the City of Buffalo because I’m afraid of what a chaotic leader in Washington might do,” he said. “There is no magic wand to make the Trump administration stop terrorizing the U.S. cities, U.S. citizens and New Americans.”
He added: “We want to provide people as much security as we can.”
Immigration advocates on Monday agreed, saying that the Trump administration was unpredictable and that Ryan was right to take action.
“How do we protect ourselves against abusers, as a community? We take sensible precautions,” said Jennifer Connor, executive director of the nonprofit organization Justice for Migrant Families. “Taking a sensible precaution is just the right step. It’s not a lightning rod.”
Connor pointed out that as a border region, Western New York was already home to federal infrastructure and agents for immigration enforcement, whether city police and employees helped them or not. The latest ICE data, for example, shows arrests in the region have more than doubled from last year.
Should the federal government deploy to Buffalo, Connor and others said community networks are in place to protect refugees, immigrants and others.
“I think that the community is going do what the community has always done: Stand up for our neighbors and love our neighbors the best we can,” said immigration attorney Catharine Grainge. “I think Buffalo is really good at doing that in a nonviolent way.”
Left unclear Monday was how the Ryan administration would enforce the executive order. Ryan did not detail how, saying “if we hear reports, then we’ll enforce it.”
“The first thing we want to do is make our policies crystal clear to the people who work for the city and the people who use city services,” he said. “We expect people to follow those rules.”
Melissa Hubbard, a leader of the Buffalo chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice who’s worked to alert local migrants of ICE activity, said she wanted greater assurance that city employees, especially police, would follow the order. It was that group that advocated for such an executive order at an event hosted by Partnership for the Public Good two weeks ago. Ryan noted that he’s engaged Acting Police Commissioner Craig Macy about the order.
“I would like to hear more about how we’re going to … [hold] people accountable if they violate this executive order, which is intended to keep people safe,” Hubbard said.
