New York’s suburban politics

Trump’s deportation push is scrambling New York’s suburban politics

Fury over immigration enforcement is dividing swing districts and putting pressure on moderate Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans.

By Nick Reisman

Simmering anger over President Donald Trump’s expansive deportation strategy has roiled the Empire State’s bellwether suburbs, upending crucial House races and complicating Republicans’ uphill bid to retake the governor’s office.

On Long Island, Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen are contending with protesters’ fury over their support for a Homeland Security funding bill. In the Hudson Valley, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the nation’s immigration policy is a failure.

And in the race for governor, incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul is pursuing measures meant to rein in federal immigration enforcement officers, while her likely Republican foe, Bruce Blakeman, has remained a stalwart Trump defender.

The divergent problems facing suburban Republicans and Democrats over Trump’s deportation agenda points to a broader shift: Voters are souring on the president’s sweeping immigration push, and the political costs are rising on both sides. The communities clustered around New York City — where immigration has increasingly influenced campaigns this decade — are becoming a bellwether for the rest of the country.

Grassroots suburban activists have seen a clear change over the last year as more people appear at rallies and sign up to act as ICE observers.

“I don’t think people really understood, because it wasn’t directly affecting them,” said Rachel Klein, the founder of Engage Long Island, a left-leaning activist group. “Now you’re seeing more of this happening in local communities. You’re seeing the manager of the bagel shop in Port Washington get arrested and detained. People are showing up.”

Taken together, the communities adjacent to the nation’s most iconic entry point for immigrants have become a battleground over Trump’s deportation campaign. They are home to a trio of swing House seats that may determine which party controls the closely divided chamber — and the fate of the final two years of Trump’s term.

The suburbs are also at a political crossroads in this deep blue state, often reflecting voters’ public safety concerns — an undercurrent that traditionally has buoyed GOP candidates. Yet Democrats have made inroads in areas like the Hudson Valley, where the party has seen significant growth in enrollment among upper-income and college-educated voters.

The suburbs are politically crucial for Blakeman, the top official in Nassau County, who is trying to reverse a 20-year losing streak for Republicans in statewide elections. Blakeman’s county executive office has signed orders meant to bolster federal immigration authorities and entered into an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work with the sheriff’s office on deportation efforts. He’s also shown no daylight with Trump and his administration’s aggressive deportation campaign — a posture that has opened him up to withering attacks from Hochul.

Those concerns are laid bare in polling. A statewide Siena University poll released Tuesday found only 33 percent of suburban voters hold a favorable view of ICE. A solid majority of suburbanites — 61 percent — disapprove of ICE’s recent arrest methods.

Moderate Democrats like Suozzi and Gillen, meanwhile, face a different calculus. They have not embraced the governor’s efforts to place guardrails on agencies like ICE when it operates in New York, and they have come under intense criticism for supporting a Homeland Security funding bill. Suozzi apologized for his vote on the bill while Gillen has called for Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment.

“The region is one of the most segregated in the nation, and people don’t live with each other, don’t talk to each other except at the highest levels of local government,” said Larry Levy, a suburban politics expert at Hofstra University. “Even then, we have so many fragmented jurisdictions that even some villages and towns are very heterogeneous.”

At the outset of his campaign for governor, Blakeman’s muscular posture on immigration helped him stand out among Republicans in New York. But as criticism of Trump’s deportation campaign intensified after the killings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota, Blakeman has done little to modify his rhetoric.

He’s called protesters in Minnesota “paid professional agitators” and “anti-American.” In a podcast interview last week, Blakeman refused to say whether Pretti deserved to be shot.

The aggressive stance has provided an opening to Hochul’s campaign, which already has leveraged Trump’s deep unpopularity in his native state.

“Even as members of his own party raise alarms about ICE’s overreach, Blakeman is firmly planted in Trump’s corner — defending the abuses, excusing the violence, and attacking Americans who dare to speak out,” Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said.

For his part, Blakeman has blasted the Democratic governor’s efforts to rein in federal immigration enforcement, calling her “the most pro-criminal governor in the United States.”

He’s also backed Trump’s call for a guest worker program, releasing a video in Spanish that touted the policy proposal.

Blakeman’s ardent support for Trump’s deportation plan is reflective of Long Island’s political dynamics. He won two terms leading purplish Nassau County by hammering Democrats on both crime and the migrant crisis that consumed New York City during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

“Immigration issues have great exposure in the suburbs of New York City and are looked at by the citizens of the suburbs as something they want to aggressively address before things get out of hand,” said New York Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar. “It’s parallel to public safety. In New York City, it’s more difficult to find elected officials who are dealing with it, and in the suburbs they’re responding much more directly.”

In the Hudson Valley, where Lawler is expected to face one of the most competitive general elections in the country, the Republican has called for sweeping changes to the country’s immigration system following Good and Pretti’s deaths.

“Americans do not want chaos,” he wrote in his Times op-ed. “They want a common-sense bipartisan solution.”

Moderate suburban Democrats face an even more complex challenge as Good and Pretti’s killings reverberated across the country. Gillen and Suozzi have taken heat from activists over their votes for a Homeland Security funding bill. Gillen pivoted to call for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment; Suozzi apologized for the vote.

That apology, though, has done little to quell the uproar for Suozzi. Protesters blasted him during a public appearance at a synagogue last month. He also has not backed Noem’s impeachment despite bipartisan calls for her to step down.

Neither Gillen or Suozzi have embraced Hochul’s moves to put guardrails around the federal government’s aggressive pursuit of undocumented immigrants. Their hesitance to do so comes after years in which Democrats were blasted for supporting cuts to police budgets and controversial measures like ending cash bail for many criminal charges.

Republicans, though, have been eager to capitalize on any Democratic criticism of federal immigration enforcement officers’ conduct and calls to reform the agency.

“Democrats’ embrace of radical, anti-law enforcement policies is a danger to the very communities they purport to serve,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O’Toole. “New Yorkers know what lawlessness looks like, and they have no interest in voting for anyone who stands for it.”

Yet Hochul — who has a broader constituency as a statewide official — is acting as national polls show support for Trump’s deportation campaign steeply dropping last month. She’s framed her push to end agreements between federal immigration authorities and municipal police as a way of re-focusing cops to deal with local crime. And — with an eye toward immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota — she has publicly urged Trump to forego a similar surge of ICE and Border Patrol agents in New York City.

“We’re prepared for whatever happens, but I hope Donald Trump sees that this is a community that he has his own investments in,” Hochul told MSNOW on Monday. “If you come after New York City, you will destabilize the economic engine of the country.”

Advocates believe there has been a clear and decisive shift over the issue.

“People are rejecting the politics of fear that’s defined the Trump era, are increasingly worried about the harm ICE tactics are causing,” said New York Immigration Coalition President Murad Awawdeh. “Americans understand that cruelty is not a policy and enforcement without humanity is being rejected.”