The lapses in criminal justice reform and border security continue to be highlighted by shocking cases not just limited to New York State, but all across the country. The latest tragedy involves that of Laken Riley, a twenty-two-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia, who was brutally and senselessly beaten by Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. Riley’s death on February 22 has since spawned proposed laws in Albany and Washington, D.C., that aim to negate sanctuary city and state statuses in New York and close loopholes that allow noncitizens and illegal immigrants from evading arrest.
Before he murdered Riley, Ibarra was arrested in 2022 in Queens on a charge of acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17, but was released before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could process him. New York officials said after Riley’s death that they had no record of the arrest.
Ibarra was also cited for misdemeanor shoplifting in Georgia in 2023, along with his brother, Diego.
Ibarra is said to have taken Riley to a remote location while she was out for a run on campus and beaten her to a point where her skull was “significantly disfigured.” A motive has not yet been identified.
Once such solution to New York’s failure to properly detain and process Ibarra is that of the aptly-titled “Laken’s Law,” sponsored in the Assembly by Assemblyman Jarett Gandolfo (R-Sayville) and in the Senate by Senator Andrew Lanza (R-Great Kills).
Assemblyman Gandolfo sat down with The Messenger to discuss his proposed legislation, A.9167, that has garnered twenty-seven cosponsors, including Assembly Minority Will Barclay (R-Pulaski). Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R-North Tonawanda) has signed as a cosponsor of the Senate version of the bill, S.8533.
“The legislation proposes that any non-citizen, not just recent migrant, but any non-citizen who is arrested by any law enforcement agency in the state must be reported to ICE and any arrest records, fingerprints, or photos have to be turned over to ICE,” explains Gandolfo. “The bill also proposed that, upon conviction of a crime, ICE would also have to be notified by the court that it went through. We figured that’s a way to make sure ICE knows about non-citizens getting arrested because Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas actually said that the government had no idea that Ibarra was in the country committing crimes.”
Gandolfo’s bill would effectively remove “sanctuary city” status for New York City and “sanctuary state” status for New York State. Such statuses often protect illegal immigrants from deportation and/or prosecution and limit state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
“When Ibarra was arrested in Queens, they processed him and released him back,” says Gandolfo. “He was charged with endangering the welfare of a child for speeding around on a moped with a child on the back who was not wearing a helmet. If ICE knew that he was arrested and charged with a felony, they could have issued a detainer until they got there to process him and take it from there. Essentially, New York City and State says ‘we do our own thing.’”
Gandolfo says it would “make sense” to have a standard in which a non-citizen is charged with a “relatively serious crime” that immigration services are notified.
“That’s the first leg of the bill: requiring all law enforcement agencies to notify ICE upon the arrest of a non-citizen,” continues Gandolfo. “The second leg of the bill would restore the maximum sentence of Class-A misdemeanors to 365 days, a one-year sentence. What the Democrats did a couple of years ago is they lessened the maximum sentence of Class-A misdemeanors from one year to 364 days, and the reason for that was if a non-citizen is arrested and convicted of a crime with a maximum sentence of a year, that typically triggers deportation. They lessened the maximum sentence by one single day for the sole purpose of protecting illegal immigrants who commit these particular crimes.”
Gandolfo says that class-A misdemeanors are serious crimes that “you wouldn’t necessarily associate off the top of your head with a misdemeanor.” Some Class-A misdemeanors in New York include some levels of assault, some levels of criminal possession of a weapon, petit larceny, and theft of services.
“The third part of the bill would repeal the 2019 ‘Protect Our Courts Act,’” says Gandolfo. “Democrats passed the act, which made it so ICE wasn’t allowed to go to a courthouse where an illegal immigrant was being tried for a crime and make an arrest at the courthouse. So, if they knew there was an illegal immigrant they were looking to deport, they know he’s charged with a crime, he’s going to be at a courthouse, now they can’t go pick him up and get him out.”
Gandolfo says one of their arguments for the act was that if non-citizens were scared of getting deported, then it would likely increase the chances of them missing their court dates, which rack up more penalties.
Gandolfo says that the law would apply not just to New York City, but to New York State overall.
“There’s a very good chance we might have a new president who will actually enforce our country’s immigration laws, so this is a good step to take,” adds Gandolfo.
Gandolfo also says that New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has also expressed “some desire to move away from the sanctuary policies in the city.”
“We’ll see if he can actually do it; they have a very progressive City Council,” said Gandolfo.
Section One of the bill would require local law to turn over fingerprints, arrest reports, and other pertinent data to ICE upon an arrest of a non-citizen.
Section Two of the bill would require the court in which the defendant is convicted to immediately notify ICE that the defendant is not a U.S. Citizen.
Section Three would amend the current law to reinstate the maximum sentence of one year for Class-A misdemeanors and unclassified misdemeanors, the latter of which applies to typically minor crimes.
Section Four also applies to misdemeanor charges.
Section Five would repeal the “Protect Our Courts” Act to allow ICE to make civil arrests at courthouses.
Section Six would repeal the other half of the courts equation by disallowing the courts to state that ICE cannot make civil arrests at courthouses in which defendants are convicted.
Section Seven would also repeal court-related laws.
Section Eight would stipulate that the law takes effect immediately upon its passage.
What the Cosponsors Say
The Messenger reached out to members of the Suffolk delegation who have cosponsored the bill in the Assembly and the Senate.
Assemblyman Keith Brown (R-Northport) says that the laws that protect violent criminals such as Ibarra make “no sense whatsoever.”
“It makes no sense that the police are not permitted to report a violent criminal who is in this country illegally to ICE,” says Brown. “They should be deported. If that Ibarra was held, Laken Riley would be alive today. What do you tell her parents?”
Brown says that while the state legislature does not have authority on the nation’s immigration laws, New York has taken steps to further exacerbate the problem.
“For the Democratic majority to propose a law that handcuffs law enforcement’s ability to keep dangerous criminals who are here illegally makes no sense whatsoever, and it’s not getting enough attention,” says Brown. “The other side will say you’re a ‘xenophobe’, or that you’re politicizing this. What are we politicizing?”
“The bill was named after Riley, but how many other thousands of people are victimized by someone who shouldn’t be here and law enforcement can’t even deport the person?” Brown continues. “The fact of the matter is the left cares more about protecting criminal defendants than they do about protecting victims.”
When it comes to Democratic interests in removing “sanctuary” city and state statuses, or in repealing the controversial bail reform laws, Brown says that there is “no indication whatsoever.”
“They created the sanctuary state/city policies and people should know that $2.5 billion of their tax dollars to deal with this problem,” Brown says, adding that Mayor Adams actually asked Albany for an additional $500 million to deal with the city’s migrant crisis.
Senator Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk), Ranking Member on the Senate Codes and Judiciary Committees, says that the failure of Albany to abate the migrant and crime crises in the state have only added fuel to the fire.
“Laken’s law, and my legislation to make body dismemberment and concealment of a human corpse bail eligible offenses, seek to address the inadequacies and problems with New York’s bail law, sanctuary policies, and keep law abiding citizens safe,” says Palumbo. “The inability to hold and detain dangerous criminals proved fatal in the Laken Riley case and has resulted in an increase in crime throughout New York State. Sadly, even with this statistical data and in the wake of these tragic cases, there is no appetite in the Democrat-controlled legislature to make even the most minor changes to these laws. In fact, both one-house budgets largely reject Governor Hochul’s attempts to combat retail theft. New York must abandon its sanctuary policies and, like forty-nine other states, provide a dangerousness standard through enhanced judicial discretion when determining bail.”
Senator Mario Mattera (R-St. James) says that while he is supportive of Laken’s Law, he believes that the monumental changes will only come in the form of repealing cashless bail and ending “sanctuary” city and state statuses.
“The problem is bail reform has to be repealed,” says Mattera. “We need to bring the right people to the table, law enforcement, DAs, and the PBA, for example, to come up with the right bail reform. We need to bring judicial discretion back.
Mattera says that “we’re going to be piecing this together every time there is an issue,” and that with so many offenses included under cashless bail, “another shoe is going to drop.”
“It’s the only way this will get fixed because we’ll have another press conference on another issue,” says Mattera. “I commend my colleagues, but all this is a band-aid fix. I’m a plumber; what would you say if I came to your house and I said that I can fix your pipes, but I don’t have the tools to fix them. This is what they did to our law enforcement, our judges, and our DAs. Additionally, our police officers are not respected; elected officials did this.”
Mattera echoed his previous calls to Governor Hochul, Mayor Adams, and Albany Democrats: “Stop the bleeding!”
