Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday got a well-deserved scolding from congressmen outraged over her efforts to protect illegal-immigrant criminals from ICE agents — and her responses were beyond pathetic, because she has no good defense.
When New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik cited Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, an illegal immigrant who came to New York and is accused of fatally setting fire to a woman on an F train, Hochul didn’t even know who he was.
Nor did she know the names of other notorious illegal immigrants who’d been in New York and are linked to horrific crimes.
“These are high-profile cases,” fumed Stefanik (who after this looks even more likely to run against Hochul next year): “New Yorkers know about them — and you don’t?”
Nor could the gov bring herself to say that Tompkins County officials were wrong to release Romero-Hernandez, even though he had pleaded guilty to assault charges and was ordered deported — and ICE had asked for him to be held.
When ICE agents showed up to get him just a bit over an hour later, he was gone.
Reps. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) blamed Hochul’s policies for the murder of 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, noting that her killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, was nabbed in New York on child-endangerment charges — but quickly freed.
They cited New York’s Green Light law, which bars state officials from sharing drivers’ info with federal officials, as well as its cashless-bail law.
And Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 170, which Hochul chose to continue, prohibiting “officers or employees, including law enforcement,” from disclosing “information to federal immigration authorities for the purpose of federal civil immigration enforcement,” unless expressly required by law.
Hochul claimed her office does cooperate with federal authorities — but also admitted New York welcomes illegal immigrants with open arms, and has for 400 years.
The problem, of course, is that unlike migrants of the past, illegal immigrants are, well, illegal: They have no right to be in America in the first place, yet President Joe Biden waved in millions nonetheless, mostly with little to no vetting.
These border-jumpers effectively cut in front of those waiting to enter legally, cost taxpayers billions, overwhelmed schools and public services and take jobs from citizens.
And far too many feel free to commit the most heinous of crimes.
Hochul seemed unfazed by all this and by lawmakers’ fury — and that of the family members of illegal immigrants’ victims.
New Yorkers should be just as livid at they are.