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SUFFOLK COUNTY, New York (WABC) -- Officials in Suffolk County are filing a legal challenge against the federal government for holding the county responsible for the cost of prisoners in the U.S. illegally.
The cost is $60 million.
Who should pay? The answer is critical to Donald Trump's plans when he becomes president.
For two years, 650 people in Suffolk County were detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Suffolk County Sheriff's Office assisted.
Now seven years later, a lawsuit decision rules that Suffolk County owes $60 million in damages and fees.
"We are now being sued for detaining them at the request of the federal government," Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said.
Romaine was joined by county legislators to announce their plan to appeal the January 2nd decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to dismiss ICE and Homeland Security from owing any of the $60 million, granting them immunity. But no immunity was granted for Suffolk County.
"Now to hold us liable because we cooperated with the federal government is nothing short of ridiculous," Romaine said.
Two of the 650 detainees in Suffolk filed a class action lawsuit and won after a federal judge ruled that Suffolk County violated state law and the Fourth Amendment by detaining hundreds of immigrants past their release dates at the request of ICE.
"To now penalize the county using taxpayers' dollars for following the law as it was interpreted at this time is unjustifiable," Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. said.
Sheriff Toulon, who currently oversees a thousand inmates in Suffolk County jails was not in charge when the county started assisting ICE and Homeland Security in 2016. He was elected toward the end in 2018.
"When New York State determined that we could no longer honor ICE detainers later that year, we immediately complied ceasing the practice following the courts decisions," Toulon said.
Suffolk County attorney Chris Clayton says the county also wants immunity.
"We think that the court failed to recognize some of the arguments that we've already made," Clayton said.
"We will fight this all the way. We are appealing this decision," Romaine said.
If Suffolk County has to pay $60 million, county executive Ed Romaine says they'll either bond it or take it out of the county's operating budget, but either way, it will fall on the taxpayers' pockets.
