Democratic mayors around the state and country are issuing executive orders against federal immigration cooperation — but Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens doesn’t plan on following suit.
Owens, like scores of other local leaders in her party, has repeatedly pledged against directing or allowing her police force to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has condemned the immigration crackdown ICE is performing on President Donald Trump’s behalf.
The mayor has also endorsed the proposed New York For All Act, a statewide bill that would prohibit local law enforcement agencies from collaborating with ICE and restrict federal immigration agents from accessing non-federal property absent a signed judicial warrant. When Gov. Kathy Hochul subsequently proposed her Local Cops, Local Crimes Act — considered by civil liberties advocates to be a watered down version of New York For All — Owens endorsed that, too.
But unlike over a dozen Democratic mayors around the country, Owens is not considering codifying that anti-ICE stance into city law. City spokesperson Sol Muñoz said in a statement to Central Current that Owens’ team has no current plans to issue an executive order.
“Mayor Owens remains committed to her pledge not to utilize City resources for immigration enforcement and has made public her Administration’s policy,” Muñoz said. “The City’s approach continues to prioritize public safety while ensuring that federal partnerships are limited to criminal investigations only.”
Advocates have called on Owens to solidify her stance against ICE.
Jessica Maxwell, the executive director of the Workers’ Center of Central New York, believes that absent an executive order, “both the message and the practice” of Owens’ stance against ICE is weakened. The Workers’ Center of Central New York supports the Syracuse Immigrant Refugee Defense Network, a volunteer-run organization that coordinates rapid support for immigrants.
An executive order would create legal redress for residents if they were to be impacted if city personnel violate Owens’ pledge against assisting ICE, Maxwell said. Crafting a written policy would require the city to delineate prohibitions for city personnel and establish a clearer plan for implementing Owens’ pledge into daily city operations.
Rather than broad overtures disavowing ICE, Maxwell said the “real value” of opposition lies in examining the ways that formal or informal cooperation and collusion between the city and the agency can occur. If the city examines how federal agents could be using city infrastructure, the city could establish restrictions to actualize Owens’ promise.
“We understand there’s a pledge for non-cooperation,” Maxwell said, “but that’s a really limited sort of scope.”
‘It can’t just be words’
Owens’ decision to not issue an executive order came after Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan in February issued an executive order officially prohibiting any city employees or resources being used to support ICE operations. Owens has expressed a similar but more limited sentiment, twice declaring that her police department will not assist ICE in civil immigration operations.
But Ryan’s executive order establishes guidelines relating to ICE that extend beyond a broad prohibition of cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Ryan’s order also:
- Limits access to non-public City facilities absent a valid judicial warrant
- bars City employees from collecting immigration status except where required by law
- requires annual reporting to the Mayor on requests from federal civil immigration authorities and mandates department-level training and implementation.
Some Democratic mayors around the country are asking those questions, and responding to them by issuing executive orders to curb the federal government’s local immigration actions while regulating the ways in which city employees can interact with ICE.
Many of the orders block agents from staging on city streets and prohibit city resources from being used to facilitate ICE operations, along with mandating training for all city personnel on interacting with federal agents.
Some of the executive orders go much further.
In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston ordered his police officers and firefighters to use their body cameras to record immigration agents when possible and “tactically safe,” and to try to identify the name and badge or identifying number of supervisory agents at overseeing operations. Johnston also instructed those safety personnel to intervene and de-escalate potential conflicts between members of the public and law enforcement personnel.
Elsewhere, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also ordered his police force to document potential misconduct by ICE agents and pursue litigation, while Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced a similar plan to investigate, verify and document any report of federal immigration enforcement activity in her city.
Much of the mayoral ordinances aimed at limiting ICE have come in 2026, but at least four mayors issued executive orders last year.
Maxwell said she believes Owens could do more. Owens has already taken at least one action that Maxwell hoped the mayor would: pushing for the New York For All Act’s passage.
Owens took that action earlier this week, joining six other mayors in New York to reiterate their call for the state to enact New York For All.
“It can’t just be words right now. Things are too tense. There’s too much going on,” Maxwell said. “We need commitments that are official, that are in paper, that are in ink, that are solid.”
‘Hedging her bets’
Muzzafar Chisti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and the director of MPI’s office at the New York University School of Law, said that Democratic mayors, like their peers at the state level, appear to be using executive orders for practical and ideological purposes.
An ordinance aimed at limiting ICE enforcement may have practical implications (like blocking federal agents from using city property to stage operations), Christi said, especially in Republican-led regions and states.
In Democratic strongholds like New York, Christi believes anti-ICE executive orders have less practical value, in part because much of ICE’s conduct is already violating established state law.
Christi said 287(g) agreements, which task local law enforcement with enforcing aspects of federal immigration law on behalf of ICE and would be banned under New York For All, already violate guidance from the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
That hasn’t stopped 13 local law enforcement agencies in New York from signing 287(g) agreements. No 287(g) agreements have so far been rescinded on the basis of that guidance. ICE has 1,528 active partnerships throughout the country.
An executive order declaring that city or police officials will not sign a 287(g) agreement or use resources or personnel to support federal immigration operations absent a valid judicial warrant would be “a redundancy,” Christi argued.
Christi acknowledged, though, that there is still educational and political value in issuing an order prohibiting ICE cooperation.
The Migration Policy Institute has tracked mayoral ordinances in response to ICE actions, and saw an uptick after masked federal agents flooded Minneapolis in a federal occupation met with fierce local resistance.
In the wake of viral videos and reports of those agents’ rampant violations of both citizens’ and non-citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights, some Democratic mayors have used executive orders to reiterate existing state laws, demonstrate their values, and educate residents of their rights.
Such a decree, even if simply reiterating existing policies, can also help reassure local immigrant communities to ensure those residents are comfortable engaging with local law enforcement and other city constituent services, Christi said.
Executive orders also offer political currency, Christi argued, saying that some of the mayors issuing such orders have made political calculations that their actions may bolster popularity now and in future campaigns, primarily among progressive-minded voters.
By choosing not to issue an executive order to codify her anti-ICE stance into city law, Owens has also made a political choice to cater to moderate voters on a lightning rod topic, Christi argued.
“If she doesn’t want to be seen as aggressively anti-ICE or pro-immigrant, she would say, ‘I never myself issued a statement, the law is the law,’” Christi said. “I think that’s what’s going on here is that she is hedging her bets.”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Jessica Maxwell is the executive director of the Syracuse Immigrant Refugee Defense Network. She is the executive director of the Workers’ Center of Central New York. Central Current regrets this error.
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