DHS Cites 6,947 New York Releases After Rep. Daniel Goldman Demands ‘One Case’ Against Sanctuary Cities
A sharp exchange inside the House Judiciary Committee has placed sanctuary cities, ICE detainers and criminal immigrant releases back at the center of Washington’s immigration debate.
Rep. Daniel Goldman, a New York Democrat, challenged Republican lawmakers to identify a case in which a noncitizen had been convicted of a removable offense, completed the criminal sentence and was not transferred to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS responded with a considerably larger number than the “one case” Goldman requested.
The department said New York jurisdictions had failed to honor immigration detainers involving 6,947 criminal noncitizens released from local custody between Jan. 20 and Dec. 1, 2025. DHS also supplied at least 12 individual examples that it said contradicted Goldman’s description of sanctuary-city policies.
The exchange produced an immediately powerful headline. Yet we must distinguish between the broad political claim that sanctuary jurisdictions sometimes decline ICE requests and Goldman’s narrower challenge involving a person who had completed a sentence for a removable criminal conviction.
Daniel Goldman challenges Republicans during border-security markup.
The argument unfolded during the House Judiciary Committee’s July 21 markup of H.R. 9773, the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act.
Goldman was responding to Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and Tom McClintock when he asked them to “cite one case” involving a convicted person who had served a sentence for a removable offense but was not transferred to DHS.
He argued that sanctuary jurisdictions generally turn over people who become removable after completing sentences for qualifying convictions.
Rep. Brad Knott, a North Carolina Republican and former federal prosecutor, challenged that assertion. Knott said sanctuary policies vary widely and pointed to disputes in North Carolina and Fairfax County, Virginia, over whether local authorities should comply with federal immigration requests.
The committee meeting was not merely an oversight hearing. Members were considering legislation designed to place significant parts of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda into federal law. The Judiciary Committee ultimately reported H.R. 9773 favorably to the House by a 16-14 vote.
DHS answers with 6,947 New York ICE detainer releases
DHS responded by pointing directly to New York, Goldman’s home state.
According to the department, New York’s failure to honor ICE detainers resulted in the release of 6,947 criminal noncitizens from Jan. 20 through Dec. 1, 2025.
The department also reported that 7,113 people held in New York jurisdictions had active ICE detainers as of Dec. 1. That group included people connected to 148 homicide offenses, 717 assaults, 260 sexual-predatory offenses and 152 weapons offenses, according to DHS.
Those are DHS figures. The department’s public releases do not provide a complete individual record for every person included in the totals, so the figures should be attributed to the agency rather than presented as an independently audited database.
The individual cases DHS says contradicted Goldman.
DHS also identified at least 12 cases involving people released by New York authorities despite ICE detainer requests.
The examples reportedly included a Dominican national arrested on an attempted-murder allegation who was released in the Bronx before ICE later detained him.
Another example involved an alleged Crips gang member with a previous assault conviction who was arrested on a weapons charge. Local authorities reportedly released him despite an ICE request.
DHS also pointed to Turkish national Selman Cevik. The department said Cevik appeared on the Known or Suspected Terrorist list and became the subject of an ICE detainer after an arrest on a first-degree menacing charge. New York City authorities released him before ICE agents later located him, according to the agency.
Separate DHS announcements have described additional New York cases involving people released or scheduled for release despite detainers, including suspects facing kidnapping, rape, murder and arson charges. These announcements represent DHS’s account of the cases, while the underlying state criminal proceedings determine whether the accused individuals are ultimately convicted.
Why the DHS number does not perfectly match Goldman’s narrow challenge
The 6,947 figure strongly challenges any suggestion that New York jurisdictions always cooperate with ICE.
It does not, however, automatically establish that every individual met every condition contained in Goldman’s question.
Goldman described a specific sequence:
- A criminal conviction occurs.
- The conviction makes the person removable.
- The person completes the criminal sentence.
- The local jurisdiction declines to transfer the person to DHS.
ICE detainers cover a broader range of circumstances. ICE can issue a detainer while charges are pending, when a person is eligible for bail, after charges are dropped, following a conviction, or when a criminal sentence ends.
ICE itself describes a detainer as a request for advance release notification and, when applicable, an additional hold of up to 48 hours so federal agents can assume custody. ICE also states that detainers are requests and do not automatically impose obligations on local agencies.
The publicly released DHS total does not break down how many of the 6,947 people had completed sentences for convictions that independently made them removable. That means the figure delivers a broad rebuttal to Goldman. At the same time, a precise answer to his narrower formulation would require case-level information about conviction status, removability, sentence completion and the reason each detainer was declined. This is an inference based on the different categories covered by immigration detainers.
How an ICE immigration detainer works
An ICE detainer does not replace the local criminal case. It begins a separate federal immigration-custody process.
Federal immigration officials argue that jail transfers are safer because ICE can assume custody in a controlled environment. When a jurisdiction declines the request, agents may instead attempt to locate the person at a residence, workplace, or public location.
Local governments respond that extending detention after a person would otherwise be released can create constitutional and financial liability, particularly when ICE presents an administrative document rather than a warrant approved by a judge.
New York City requires more than an ICE administrative request.
New York City’s rules do not state that every person with a criminal record must be shielded from federal immigration enforcement.
Instead, the city places conditions on when agencies may extend custody or provide assistance.
The local framework generally requires federal authorities to present a judicial warrant, not merely an ICE administrative detainer. The person must also have a qualifying violent or serious conviction or be identified as a possible match in the terrorist-screening database.
New York City’s rules therefore distinguish among an arrest, a pending charge, a conviction and a qualifying serious conviction.
This distinction explains part of the political conflict. DHS may consider a person removable and dangerous based on immigration records, previous convictions or current charges. A city agency may conclude that it lacks authority to hold that person beyond the release time ordered under local criminal law unless a judge has issued an additional warrant.
Sanctuary cities do not follow one national policy.
The phrase “sanctuary city” has no single federal statutory definition.
Some jurisdictions prohibit local police from questioning people about immigration status. Others limit the sharing of release information. Some decline requests to extend custody without judicial warrants, while others cooperate with ICE when certain criminal-history requirements are satisfied.
Some jurisdictions do not officially use the sanctuary label but still restrict particular forms of immigration cooperation.
This variation makes sweeping claims difficult to sustain. Goldman’s description did not necessarily represent every sanctuary jurisdiction, while DHS’s New York statistics cannot automatically describe policies in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota or other states.
Public safety and local control collide.
DHS presents the issue primarily as a public-safety dispute.
The department argues that declining a detainer can return a removable person with a serious criminal history to the community. It also says jail cooperation reduces the need for larger, more visible immigration operations in neighborhoods.
Sanctuary-policy supporters frame the issue differently.
They argue that local police departments should not become extensions of federal civil immigration enforcement. They also maintain that immigrants may become less willing to report domestic violence, workplace exploitation or other crimes when contact with local authorities could expose relatives or witnesses to deportation proceedings.
Courts have additionally recognized limits on the federal government’s ability to compel state and local officers to spend their resources enforcing federal immigration policy. ICE’s own guidance acknowledges that detainer compliance is voluntary.
National figures show that most detainers are honored.
The political argument can create the impression that local authorities reject nearly every ICE request. Available national figures show a more mixed picture.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Congress that jurisdictions declined 17,864 ICE detainers in 2025, while ICE submitted approximately 201,340 requests nationwide.
That would mean more than 90 percent were not recorded as declined. However, the testimony did not clarify whether the department was using the calendar year or the federal fiscal year, and it did not establish how many honored requests resulted in ICE physically taking custody.
The national data therefore supports two conclusions at once. Most ICE detainers appear to receive cooperation, but thousands are still declined, creating numerous individual cases that DHS and Republican lawmakers can cite.
The Permanent Trump Secure Border Act raises the stakes.
The Goldman-DHS clash occurred while lawmakers were debating a bill intended to make Trump’s border policies more difficult for a future administration to reverse.
H.R. 9773 would tighten asylum eligibility, expand detention requirements, increase penalties for certain immigration violations and criminalize visa overstays. It would also direct DHS to expand border staffing, infrastructure, surveillance systems and biometric screening.
Republicans argue that legislation is necessary because the next president can rescind executive orders.
Democrats contend that the bill emphasizes detention and deportation without creating sufficient legal-immigration pathways or imposing stronger accountability rules on ICE.
As of July 24, 2026, the measure had been reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee but had not completed a final House floor vote.
What the sanctuary-city confrontation established
We can confidently establish that New York jurisdictions have declined ICE detainer requests. DHS has provided thousands of instances and multiple named examples, undermining any broad suggestion that sanctuary jurisdictions invariably transfer removable noncitizens to federal custody.
We should be equally precise about the boundaries of the evidence.
An ICE detainer can arise before conviction, after an arrest, during removal proceedings or at the end of a sentence. Some examples supplied by DHS involved new criminal charges rather than completed sentences for removable convictions.
The sharpest factual conclusion is therefore narrower than the most partisan interpretations.
That unresolved distinction will keep sanctuary-city policy at the center of the national debate over immigration enforcement, local authority, constitutional limits and public safety.
