House GOP report says NYC prosecutors shaped plea deals to avoid deportations

Right · 2A report by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee says New York City district attorneys' offices have sought to limit the immigration consequences of prosecuting noncitizens, with the most serious allegations aimed at the Bronx and Queens. 1 2 Right · 2The report says Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark trains prosecutors "to conceal facts from the record of conviction" and pursue alternative charges that would not trigger deportation. 2 1 Right · 2Bronx training materials quoted in the report tell prosecutors to keep firearms out of conviction records, to leave out the domestic relationship in domestic violence cases, and to offer charges that do not specify a child victim's age; a 2019 guide cited by the New York Post urges prosecutors to "[o]ffer something that does not have the child's age as an element of the crime." 2 1

Right · 2The report also says Bronx prosecutors were encouraged to pursue "legally impossible" offenses, which it says cannot support removal proceedings; its example is a plea to "attempted reckless assault." Fox News adds that New York courts allow such pleas and that the state's Court of Appeals upheld the concept this year. 1 2 Right · 1Fox News reports that state data from the Immigrant Defense Project show 289 convictions for attempted reckless assault across the city from 2015 through 2025, including 50 in the Bronx. 1 Right · 2In Queens, DA Melinda Katz told prosecutors to "exercise extreme caution" with cases involving noncitizens and to consult the office's immigration specialist. The report cites a May 2026 email in which a Queens prosecutor told an NYPD detective the office had "basically made a [plea] deal which is 'immigration safe'" while the defendant still pleaded to multiple crimes and served some jail time. 2 1

Right · 1The New York Post adds that Queens employs an immigration specialist who helped get 21 convictions reduced or thrown out in 2020, and that Katz urged then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to grant pardons in six cases to prevent deportation. 2 Right · 1According to the Post, Katz first rejected the committee's May request, arguing that state prosecutions fall outside Congress's oversight jurisdiction, and relented only after Chairman Jim Jordan and subcommittee chairman Tom McClintock sent an August letter warning of a possible subpoena. 2 Right · 2The report says the other boroughs use similar approaches: Brooklyn has sought "immigration-neutral" dispositions since 2017, Staten Island DA Michael McMahon has a unit that asks ICE to delay deportations, and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office called a 2022 policy of seeking dispositions that avoid immigration consequences "outdated" while still weighing citizenship case by case. 2 1

Right · 2The report also covers detainers, which are federal requests that local authorities briefly hold people for ICE. It says the NYPD declined 20,255 between July 2018 and June 2026, nearly 10,000 of them in the final 12 months, and the Department of Correction declined all 2,852 it received. 1 2 Right · 2Republicans argue the practice has consequences beyond immigration court, because omissions that keep a defendant off ICE's radar can keep them out of other law enforcement's sight too. The findings come as House Republicans push the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, which the committee advanced in March but which has stalled, and the report says lawmakers will keep investigating sanctuary jurisdictions. 2 1 Right · 2Representatives of the Bronx and Queens DA offices did not respond to the Post's requests for comment, and Fox News said the five offices and the mayor's office did not immediately respond to its request. 2 1