North Country Congresswoman Elise Stefanik was in Broome County Tuesday. She was an invited speaker at the annual Broome County Republican Committee clambake.
She addressed a reporter’s questions about concerns raised by some local leaders that a new recruiting campaign by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will make it harder for local police to hire officers.
ICE hopes to recruit 10,000 new enforcement officers. The agency advertises the jobs with attractive salaries, federal benefits and for some, signing bonuses of up to $50,000.
The agency has been allocated $30 billion for the hiring campaign. The money is part of $75.6 billion for ICE in the new domestic spending bill passed in July. The president signed the bill on July 4.
Binghamton Mayor Jared Kraham said the new federal hiring push creates challenges for local forces trying to recruit and retain officers. Kraham, a Republican, spoke to WSKG in July when the ICE hiring campaign began.
“I am concerned, and mayors across upstate New York and across the country should be very concerned, that already in a competitive workforce where we’re struggling sometimes to try to recruit members of law enforcement, we’ve had to upgrade our pay with collective bargaining agreements, change some personnel policies. We’ve done a very progressive family leave policy here at the city to try to recruit and retain young officers,” he said, “that will only be made harder if there’s now this rush to hire 10,000 as part of the federal government.”
Stefanik was a powerful advocate for the domestic policy bill.
In answer to a reporter’s questions, she said she always supports local law enforcement in Congress. But she said the recruiting problem won’t be solved with money alone.
“The problem in New York where you’ve seen an historic number of retirements is because of Kathy Hochul and single-party Democrat laws whether it’s failed bail reform and putting criminals first. This is the reason you’re seeing law enforcement retire and the difficulties of recruiting.”
An FBI article identified recruiting as a challenge across the country as far back as 2019. It says the situation has gotten worse since the pandemic.
Stefanik has been speaking at events around the state. She is expected to announce a run against Governor Kathy Hochul in November.
