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Go ahead, Blake his day.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman dared Gov. Kathy Hochul to try and stop him from assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in defiance of new sanctuary bills largely barring local cops from working with federal immigration authorities.
The Democrat-passed package of bills would ban the Blakeman-brokered partnership with ICE that gives the agency space in Nassau County’s jail.
Blakeman, who’s running against Hochul as the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, had a blunt response to the governor’s threats to sic state Attorney General Letitia James on him to force Nassau County into line with the anti-ICE laws.
“Make my day,” he said.
“We will not comply with the law limiting our ability to cooperate with (ICE),” Blakeman said, adding that he intends to sue the state over the new laws.
The taunt imparted exclusively to The Post could put Blakeman and Hochul on a collision course outside the ballot box in November.
Hochul has increasingly fashioned herself as the leader of a Democratic “resistance” against President Trump, particularly on his hardline immigration policies.
Under pressure from the left, Hochul pushed a sweeping legislative package to enshrine New York as a sanctuary state.
The bills would ban teamwork between local police and ICE, including all “informal cooperation” such as a city cop calling the federal agency if they believe an undocumented migrant is in their custody.
The package also prohibits all federal law enforcement officers from wearing masks to conceal their identity and allows people to sue immigration agents for violating their constitutional rights, such as entering homes without a warrant.
But a ban on so-called “287-g” agreements — in which specific localities carved out deals with the feds — almost seemed tailor-made to bug Blakeman.
Blakeman, a vocal Trump ally, had inked one of New York’s most cooperative 287-g agreements with ICE last year.
Under the contract’s terms, 50 jail cells were set to house federal immigration detainees, but only for up to three days before they’re either removed by federal agents or released.
Since February 2025, Nassau County has held roughly 3,200 immigration detainees for ICE who were picked up from all over the New York metropolitan area.
While Hochul fashions herself as an anti-Trump Rambo, Blakeman evoked Dirty Harry and vowed to sue in order to keep his ICE deal alive.
“We have removed thousands of illegal migrants with criminal records — and we didn’t raid one church, we didn’t raid one school, we didn’t raid one daycare center, we didn’t raid one hospital — we did it in cooperation and therefore we had control over it,” Blakeman said.
State officials have previously attacked the partnership and Nassau County was sued by the New York Civil Liberties Union over the deal in a case that was tossed out.
Critics have pointed out that nearly 60% of ICE detainees in Nassau County were found to have criminal records, and only about 5% were convicted of violent crimes, according to federal data.
Sources close to Blakeman, however, said that the county only hands over migrants directly to ICE in situations of violent crimes or when a detainer is placed on someone, like in the case of alleged arsonist Elder Lopez Avalos.
The sources also said Nassau’s set-aside cells mainly house detainees picked up by the feds from outside jurisdictions.
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