Troy police arrested 25-year-old Kovy B. Carrillo-Flores and charged him with four counts of third-degree rape in connection with an alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl, and the case has quickly become a flashpoint in Rensselaer County's fight to preserve its cooperation agreement with federal immigration authorities. Police say Carrillo-Flores bit one officer and injured another's wrist as he was taken into custody, and he is now being held without bail at the county jail.
According to the Times Union, Carrillo-Flores was accused of having sexual contact with a girl who, because of her age, could not legally consent. Deputy Police Chief Steven Barker said the officer was bitten during the arrest on Fifth Avenue, and another officer sustained a wrist injury in the struggle, per the same account. Barker withheld further details about the relationship between Carrillo-Flores and the alleged victim to protect her privacy. The arrest date has been reported inconsistently — the Times Union's account places it on Monday, October 19, while the Troy Record and CBS6 Albany report the arrest occurred, or was announced, Tuesday morning.
Officials Seize on Case Amid Legal Fight Over ICE Access
County Executive Steven McLaughlin and Sheriff Kyle Bourgault said at a news conference that the arrest exemplifies why Rensselaer County should retain its cooperation agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Times Union reports. McLaughlin told CBS6 Albany, “This shows why we continue to fight to maintain our agreement with ICE and use the database, the 287(g) database.” He said Carrillo-Flores is being held at the county jail and that the county is 100 percent confident Carrillo-Flores is in the country illegally, a claim McLaughlin attributed to the suspect's own admission that he is a citizen of Guatemala.
Bourgault said law enforcement used investigative efforts to confirm Carrillo-Flores's nationality after he admitted he was from Guatemala, but the sheriff declined to disclose whether the county used the federal database for a background check on him, or to provide further details about how authorities confirmed his citizenship, per the Times Union. McLaughlin said that without an ICE agreement, the county would have more difficulty communicating with the federal agency and tracking a suspect's criminal history, adding, “If we can't use that 287(g) database and that person is in our jail, we don't know what other crimes he is wanted for.”
What the 287(g) Agreement Actually Covers
Rensselaer County has participated in the federal 287(g) program since 2018 under what is known as the Jail Enforcement Model, according to the Troy Record. Bourgault has said the county's participation occurs entirely inside the jail and involves people who have already been arrested, brought into custody and charged — not people picked up solely over civil immigration status. The sheriff has said nine people have been identified and removed through the process since the county joined the program, per CBS6 Albany.
County spokesperson Rich Crist said the agreement gives the county access to the Person Centric Query Service, a tool developed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that allows authorized officials to view an immigrant's history across federal, state and private databases, the Times Union reports. ICE issued an immigration detainer for Carrillo-Flores shortly after he was booked into the county jail, according to McLaughlin; such detainers request that a county hold someone in custody for up to 48 hours beyond their normal release time, per ICE's own website. Bourgault said ICE will be there if Carrillo-Flores is ever released.
State Law Versus County Practice
New York's law bans formal 287(g) agreements covering civil immigration enforcement between local police and ICE, the Times Union reports. Gov. Kathy Hochul has said the agreement ban applies only to civil immigration enforcement, and that state and local law enforcement can still assist federal agencies in matters involving serious crimes; she has also said that once someone is convicted and serves time, the state works with ICE to ensure deportation. Hochul has separately said that crossing a U.S. border without authorization is a civil violation rather than a crime, though people who cross while evading a checkpoint are routinely prosecuted for a misdemeanor in federal court. State officials maintain the law does not prevent cooperation with ICE in criminal cases but bars the formal agreements themselves, the Troy Record notes.
Bourgault and McLaughlin have joined a federal lawsuit, with Rensselaer County as lead plaintiff among 15 sheriff's departments, challenging the state law and naming Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James as defendants, according to the Times Union. Court filings from the sheriffs argue that virtually none of the departments involved conduct civil immigration enforcement separate from someone already charged with a crime. The U.S. Department of Justice filed its own separate lawsuit against New York in June challenging the same law, and under the state's current mandate, 287(g) agreements must be canceled by November 25.
A Wider Fight Playing Out Nationally
Rensselaer County's agreement was among the first in New York when it was adopted in 2018; seven other county sheriff's offices in the state have since entered their own 287(g) agreements, according to WAMC. Similar battles are playing out elsewhere — seventeen Maryland sheriffs have sued that state over its own 287(g) ban, NPR reports, and a federal appeals court previously upheld most of a Texas law banning sanctuary cities following litigation involving Travis County. Carrillo-Flores is expected to appear in court Friday.
