Family of NY teen killed by illegal immigrant knows the horror of ‘sanctuary’ laws — but Gov. Hochul backed one anyway

On the morning of March 19, three police officers knocked on a door in Yorktown Heights and delivered the worst news any parent can receive.

Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old Yorktown High School graduate and a freshman at Loyola University Chicago, was shot and killed while walking with friends.

The man charged with her murder was an illegal immigrant who was detained at the border and then released.

He was then arrested in Chicago and released again. Then he failed to appear in court.

Sheridan’s mother, Jessica, put it plainly: a 10-second phone call from local police to ICE could have saved her daughter’s life.

After a tragedy like this, you’d think Democrats in Albany would ask what went wrong and how we can prevent it from happening again.

Instead, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrats in the Legislature doubled down. 

Their new “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act” prohibits police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities and strips state law enforcement funding from any department that refuses to comply.

Sheridan Gorman was fatally shot while walking with friends in Chicago on March 19, 2026. Instagram / Sheridan Gorman

In plain English: Albany is now punishing police departments for simply doing their jobs and, in doing so, creating the conditions that will lead to another set of parents getting the same life-changing knock on the door the Gormans did.

Look at the numbers. Per data from ICE, the agency has lodged 21,730 detainers in New York State since Jan. 20, 2025.

New York refused to honor 13,621 of them, nearly two out of every three.

The people behind those ignored detainers carried a combined 41,780 criminal charges and convictions, an average of more than three apiece.

In New York City, 12,787 of 15,206 detainers were ignored, a refusal rate of 84%.

So much for Hochul’s dishonest claim that “nothing in our laws prevents violent criminals from being turned over to ICE.”

Consider what happened recently in Nassau County, where local police on routine patrol observed three men in a Home Depot parking lot unloading a wooden crate into their vehicles.

That crate contained rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, three machetes, assorted knives, suspected cocaine and a forged Social Security card.

All three men were arrested on state charges. Two were determined to be in the country illegally and turned over to ICE. The third was released on an appearance ticket.

The only reason two of those men will see an immigration judge is that, at the time, Nassau County still had a working relationship with federal authorities when those arrests were made.

But on Aug. 25, Hochul and Albany Democrats voided that relationship, which means if an identical case came up in September, those men would escape ICE’s grip.

Minneapolis showed us where this leads. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January were tragic, but they were avoidable.

City leaders barred their own police department from cooperating with ICE, even for traffic and crowd control.

So when federal agents moved through those neighborhoods, no local cops were managing the crowds or the traffic around them, and the situation spun out of control.

That does not mean federal agents get a pass. I have said repeatedly that ICE should adopt common-sense reforms: Agents should wear body cameras, and should not be masked.

Americans deserve to know who is policing them, and transparency protects good agents as much as it protects the public.

But improving ICE and cooperating with ICE are not competing ideas. We need both, and right now New York is refusing to do either.

We should all remember why ICE has to be out there at all: Joe Biden let millions of illegal immigrants into this country without adequate vetting.

You cannot throw open the border, tie the hands of law enforcement and then act shocked at the consequences.

No one here is attacking legal immigration. Lawful immigrants waited, applied, were vetted and followed the rules.

The problem is our state has chosen, as official policy, to shield people who broke our laws and then committed crimes against New Yorkers.

When Jessica and Tom Gorman stood in front of the Yorktown Police Department and begged the governor to change course, she dismissed their plea and suggested the family was being “exploited.”

She saved her outrage for federal law enforcement and could not spare one word of accountability for the man who murdered an 18-year-old New Yorker.

That tells you everything about whose side Hochul’s administration is on.

Gov. Hochul should immediately call the Legislature back into session and repeal this disastrous law.

Let police officers do the jobs we trust them to do. In Congress, I will keep fighting to end sanctuary policies nationwide.

Jessica Gorman said it best: Enough is enough.

Rep. Mike Lawler represents New York’s 17th Congressional District.