DHS Says New York Ignored Nearly 15,000 ICE Detainers. The City's Own Records Confirm the Refusals and Show Why

The Department of Homeland Security says New York refused to honor nearly 15,000 ICE detainers between January 2025 and mid-September 2026, and it is using that number to blame the state’s sanctuary laws for the Oct. 8 shooting of a man by an ICE officer in the Bronx. New York City’s own legally required reports largely back up the core of the claim: the NYPD received 9,645 detainers in the year ending June 30, 2026, about 163 percent more than the year before, and honored none of them, because city law bars it from doing so in nearly every case.

That makes this less a dispute over facts than a dispute over law and responsibility. Federal officials say local refusals push ICE onto the streets to make arrests it could have made quietly at a jail door. New York officials say a detainer is a request, not a court order, and that holding someone on one would break state law. Both statements can be true at once, and the numbers explain why the fight over detainers has become the sharpest edge of the confrontation between the Trump administration and New York’s new city government.

What DHS claimed on Oct. 9

In a release issued the day after the shooting, DHS said New York had declined to honor 14,916 ICE detainers lodged between Jan. 20, 2025, and Sept. 14, 2026, and tied them to what it described as 47,750 criminal charges and convictions, including 96 homicides and 448 sexual assaults. The department did not publish a breakdown by county, agency or case, so those totals cannot be checked independently. Note the wording, too: the figure combines charges with convictions, and an arrest charge is not proof that someone committed a crime.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said sanctuary politicians “create an environment for criminal activity to thrive,” according to The Christian Science Monitor. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has countered that “ICE undermines public safety” and has called for the agency to end its operations in the city. Marcos Charles, who heads ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, said ICE had a detainer on the man who was shot, Oscar Belgal, but did not say when it was lodged, and the NYPD did not confirm it, the Monitor reported. Belgal survived, and the Monitor reported that he appeared to remain in ICE custody.

What New York City’s own reports show

New York City is one of the few places where detainer handling is published on a schedule. City law requires both the NYPD and the Department of Correction, which runs Rikers Island, to report each year how many detainers they received and what they did with them. Those reports are the best public check on the DHS figure.

Agency and period	Detainers received	Honored or transferred to ICE
NYPD, July 2024 to June 2025	3,672	0
NYPD, July 2025 to June 2026	9,645	0
Dept. of Correction, July 2024 to June 2025	595	Report lists 2 in one place and 19 in a footnote
Dept. of Correction, calendar 2024	403	18
Dept. of Correction, calendar 2025	Nearly 900	25

Sources: NYPD Summary of Statistics on ICE Detainers for fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026; NYC Department of Correction Annual ICE Report, fiscal 2025; calendar-year Correction figures from DOC testimony to the City Council as reported by the Queens Daily Eagle (March 5, 2026).

Three things stand out.

The volume is real and rising fast. Detainers sent to the NYPD rose from 3,672 to 9,645 in a single year, an increase of about 163 percent (Immigration Analytics calculation from the NYPD reports). That tracks with ICE’s own push. In July 2025, DHS said it had issued 6,025 detainers in New York City in roughly the first six months of the administration, compared with 9,472 during the entire Biden term.

The NYPD honored none. Both NYPD reports list every detainer as not honored “pursuant to local law AC 14-154 of 2017,” with no one held past release and no one transferred to ICE. On the NYPD side, DHS’s description of a near-total refusal is accurate.

Rikers is not quite “absolute silence.” The Department of Correction did hand a small number of people to ICE: 18 of 403 detainers in 2024 and 25 of nearly 900 in 2025, according to the department’s testimony to the City Council. That works out to roughly 3 to 4.5 percent (Immigration Analytics calculation). The department’s own fiscal 2025 report is internally inconsistent, listing two transfers in its answer and 19 in a footnote, which is the kind of gap the City Council and federal officials will both seize on.

One more point is worth making carefully, because it is analysis rather than reported fact. With the NYPD alone receiving 9,645 detainers in a 12-month stretch that falls inside DHS’s 20-month window, the city’s police department very likely accounts for most of the 14,916 detainers DHS says went unhonored statewide. NYPD detainers typically arrive soon after an arrest, before any trial. That helps explain why DHS reports its total in terms of “charges and convictions” rather than convictions alone.

Why New York says it cannot comply

An ICE detainer, issued on Form I-247A under 8 C.F.R. 287.7, asks a jail or police agency to tell ICE before it releases someone and to hold that person for up to 48 hours past the time they would otherwise go free. It is signed by an immigration officer, not a judge. That single fact drives most of the legal conflict.

New York has stacked three layers of restriction on top of it:

A 2018 state appellate ruling. In People ex rel. Wells v. DeMarco, a New York appeals court held that state and local officers lack authority under state law to keep someone in custody past their release solely so federal agents can make a civil immigration arrest. A detainer, on its own, therefore cannot justify extra detention anywhere in the state.
City laws dating to 2014. New York City’s Administrative Code sections 9-131 (Correction) and 14-154 (NYPD), as amended in 2017, allow cooperation only in narrow cases, generally when ICE supplies a judicial warrant and the person has been convicted of a listed “violent or serious” crime or is a possible match in the federal terrorist screening database.
State limits on courthouse arrests. The 2020 Protect Our Courts Act bars civil immigration arrests at state courthouses unless agents have a judicial order or criminal warrant. A federal judge in Albany dismissed the Justice Department’s challenge to that law in November 2025.

New York is not an outlier on the core legal question. Federal courts have long treated detainers as requests rather than commands. In Galarza v. Szalczyk (2014), the Third Circuit held that localities are not required to honor them, and the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle limits Washington’s ability to force state officers to carry out federal programs. Where the administration has gained ground is on the other side of the ledger: Congress can attach conditions to some federal funds, and the 2025 Laken Riley Act expanded mandatory detention for certain noncitizens charged with theft-related and violent offenses, which the Justice Department now cites against sanctuary jurisdictions.

The Justice Department sued New York City over its sanctuary laws in July 2025 in federal court in Brooklyn, arguing that they violate the Supremacy Clause, the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Laken Riley Act. The city moved to dismiss in February 2026, and Immigration Analytics could not find a public ruling on that motion. Former ICE official Scott Mechkowski told the Monitor that the Bronx shooting “could have been prevented” had Belgal been handed over from a jail. University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris told the same outlet that civil detainers “are not judicial warrants” and that jurisdictions may choose whether to honor them.

Questions readers are asking

Is it true New York ignored almost 15,000 ICE detainers?

Largely yes, as far as public records can show. The NYPD’s reports confirm it declined every one of the 3,672 and 9,645 detainers it received in the last two fiscal years. The exact statewide total of 14,916 and the attached crime counts come only from DHS and have not been broken down publicly. City jails did transfer a small number of people.

Does an ICE detainer mean the person committed a crime?

No. A detainer means ICE believes the person is removable from the United States and wants custody of them. It is often lodged right after a local arrest, before any conviction, and it can be issued for people who have never been convicted of anything. DHS’s own total mixes pending charges with convictions.

If someone with a detainer is released in New York, can ICE still arrest them?

Yes. Sanctuary laws limit what local officers do; they do not stop federal agents from making arrests themselves, including at homes, workplaces and on the street, outside state courthouses. That is exactly what the administration says it is now doing more often in New York, and why DHS argues that street arrests carry more risk for officers and bystanders.

Does this matter for green card holders or visa holders?

It can. Lawful status does not prevent ICE from lodging a detainer on a noncitizen arrested for a crime that could make them removable, including permanent residents. Anyone with lawful status who is arrested in New York should expect ICE to learn of the arrest through fingerprint sharing and should get immigration advice alongside criminal defense advice, since the outcome of the criminal case often decides the immigration one.

Where this goes next

The rise in detainers matters less for what it changes inside New York’s jails, where the answer was always going to be no, than for what it signals about ICE’s strategy. Lodging thousands of requests the agency knows will be refused builds a paper record that DHS can use in court, in funding fights and in public messaging, as the Oct. 9 release shows. Expect the figures to appear in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the city, in any renewed push to cut federal grants to sanctuary jurisdictions, and in the debate over the Belgal shooting.

On the city side, the next NYPD and Correction reports will show whether the pace kept climbing after June. The open questions are whether a federal judge in Brooklyn lets the Justice Department’s suit proceed, and whether Congress or the courts narrow the anti-commandeering line that has protected local refusals for more than a decade. Until one of those changes, the practical result in New York stays the same: ICE asks, the city declines, and the arrests move to the street.

Immigration Analytics will update this story as DHS releases more detail and as the court cases move forward. This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

Author's website Author's posts