Congressman Tom Suozzi apologizing for his vote on Homeland Security funding.

Two protesters killed in confrontations with ICE agents in Minnesota.

The impact that's having on anti-ICE groups here on the island.

And is Bruce Blakeman softening his stance on the immigration crackdown?

"Island Insider" starts now.

[ music ] Thanks for joining us.

I'm Doug Geed.

The Trump administration's immigration crackdown has become an increasingly important issue in national and local politics.

There have been many nationwide protests following the fatal shooting of a nurse in Minnesota by an ICE agent.

As a result, the Department of Justice announced that it's opening a civil rights probe into the deadly confrontation.

And here on the island, we've been seeing scenes like this one, where agents are grabbing people off the streets.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has supported the Trump plan, even partnering with ICE, among other things.

Blakeman set aside space at the county jail for detainees.

But recently, we heard something a little different from the county exec.

We need to have compassion, and we need to use common sense with respect to people who have been here for a long while that may have overstayed their visa, who are gainfully employed, contributing to the community, may have children in schools.

I think we need a guest worker program for people like that so that we can normalize them.

Blakeman said that at the Long Island Association's annual breakfast.

We asked Larry Levy, the Dean of Hofstra's National Center for Suburban Studies, what's the motivating factor behind Blakeman's statement?

If Blakeman has any chance, and he's a long shot in a very democratic state, but if he has any chance to win the governorship, he needs to get Democrats voting for him.

At the same time, he needs the MAGA base.

One of the reasons why he did so well in the county executive race a few months ago is that he had more than 50% support from Latinos.

That support, at least for Trump and many Republicans, has disappeared.

Levy believes there's also a business component that Blakeman is considering.

He is a Republican.

He does have strong ties to the business community and there's a clamor from Long Island, from the LIA, from all kinds of other groups that we need immigrant workers.

Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi of Glen Cove issued an apology of sorts for voting in favor of funding Homeland Security.

I caught up with Suozzi at a recent public event.

I said that when I first looked at it, I didn't take into account that it would be such a, viewed as a referendum on the immoral and illegal behavior by ICE.

Now, they're still going to be funded anyway.

Even if government shuts down, they have the money for what they call the "Big Beautiful Bill" to continue to operate unimpeded the same way they operated during the government shutdown.

The problem is, is that people want us to stand up and I did, I didn't do it before, I'm doing it now and just say very clearly, this is wrong.

The rapid response teams that monitor ICE activity on Long Island are growing.

Newsday reporter Bart Jones explains why.

After Renee Good was killed on January 3rd, they've seen their numbers really go up of volunteers.

on the East End, so their numbers go up by 50%.

They had about 200 members before Renee's killing, and it's gone up to 300 now.

So they're seeing a lot of interest in this, there's a lot of outrage, there's a lot of anger.

There's also fear, I mean people, you know, realize they could be killed doing this work.

Well thousands have already been arrested here on Long Island, and some fear the region could see an even bigger surge of ICE agents.

Long Island has a lot of immigrants.

It's got at least 100,000 undocumented immigrants, so it could certainly be a target for even more action.

I mean, there's definitely already action happening out here, but they are fearful that it could become a so-called surge with increased action by ICE agents.

One Greenport resident talked with Newsday about why she chose to join an East End Rapid Response Team.

I'm so disturbed about what's going on in our country right now, and I'm very concerned and frightened actually for what the future holds for our young people.

I'm older, I've seen a lot, I've lived through really great times in America, and I really hope those great times come back again, but it doesn't seem like we're on that trajectory right now.

To state matters now, Governor Hochul's proposed $260 billion budget proposal is about much more than just spending.

You can make historic investments without raising income taxes, without mortgaging the next generation, without losing sight of what people can afford.

- Here are some of the big points in the spending plan that could affect your finances.

No increase in state taxes, a 4.3% increase in school aid.

That's about $1.6 billion more for schools statewide.

And the spending plan calls for an end to taxes on tips.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running against Hochul, issued a statement claiming that she's contributing, continuing I should say, to poor billions in spending on migrant services.

Now he went on to say quote, "There's no income tax relief, no property tax relief, no utility cost relief, nothing that helps families and seniors keep up with the rising cost of living."

Newsday TV's Joy Brown digs into the politics behind the governor's plan.

Now the budget is supposed to be about funding state programs, but in an election year like this year, it's much, much more than that.

Joining me now are Newsday's Albany Bureau Chief Yancey Roy and Political Consultant Mike Dawidziak.

Thank you both for being with me today.

Let's start with what's included in the governor's proposal and what's going to happen in Albany.

Yancey, what part of this budget is going to make it all the way through and what, if anything, faces opposition from the state legislature?

Well, I think that by and large, Governor Hochul has designed this as a smooth sailing budget, because it is an election year.

If you look at some of her past budgets, her recent history, some of the things that she's proposed in a budget have been very controversial and stirred up fights, whether it was changing the school aid formula to hurt some districts, or a provision to override local zoning when it came to housing, maybe adjusting the MTA payroll tax, maybe changing criminal law procedure and the balance between prosecutors and defenders.

All of those things were surefire battles that were coming in the legislature.

This year, there's none of that.

No big controversial policies to speak of.

You could say, using a phrase, "nobody's ox is gored" and school spending will go up, as it always does.

The governor has not picked any fights because I think she wants a smooth budget to get right onto the runway of her re-election campaign.

Okay, Mike, again, since this budget is as much about policy, even if it's easy policy, as politics, especially since she's running against Blakeman, who has been lobbying a lot at her.

How's the fallout from the immigration crackdown shaping what we're hearing from the governor and what we're seeing in the budget?

Well, you're probably going to hear as little as possible from the governor on this issue because this, as Nancy just pointed out, this is a very, very cautious budget.

It's designed to offend as few people as possible, and it probably excites very few people as well.

But look, she's very, very well aware of the fact that four years ago, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, the Republican candidate got, Lee Zeldin, got 47% of the vote.

And she has to be very, very cautious about that Republican independent coalition coming together again to make this a competitive race.

She's got a big lead in the polls right now, and this budget is basically designed to sit on that lead and not do anything to erode it at all.

Now, as any hockey fan can tell you, be you an Islander fan or a Ranger fan or maybe even a Buffalo Sabre fan, sitting on the lead doesn't often work.

It often has disastrous results.

But she is going to be very, very cautious and on the immigration issue in particular because nobody really knows where this is going to go.

There's going to be noise from the progressive left about defunding ICE.

And if you remember the last time we had the defunding the police, that didn't work out so well for the Democrats.

So she may not want it to go that far.

I think probably there's going to be a middle ground where a lot of people are going to end up, which will be reforming the ICE tactics, but not necessarily going so far as to defund it.

Well, let's go back up to Albany.

Yancey, what's the reaction to state plans to spend its Medicaid money in light of federal funding cuts to people who, so far at least, are here legally, including those seeking asylum and refugees?

Well, you know, Medicaid is always one of the biggest items in the budget, right, along with school aid, and New York has a very, historically a very generous program when it comes to Medicaid.

We tend to take care of a lot more people than some of the other states do.

And the Medicaid budget this time is supposed to go up about 11 percent, and coverage for all sorts of people is in there.

I think that politically what to know is that Bruce Blakeman, the presumptive Republican candidate, will try to use talking points that say Governor Hochul is spending a lot on people who are not here legally, whether it's through Medicaid or one other big funnel of money is giving it to New York City to help them with shelters and other sorts of safety things right now.

To go back to Michael's point for a second, the one thing that Hochul has endorsed on this issue, and I think a lot of legislators are behind already, which sounds like it'd be easy to do, is simply giving citizens a right to sue an ICE officer if in the in the course of any kind of incident or confrontation the person feels that the ICE officer has violated their civil rights.

But that might be as far as it goes right now in terms of legislation this year.

Yancey Roy, Mike Dawidzak, thank you both for joining our conversation.

Well Newsday's team of journalists scoured public records to find out which town supervisors brought home the biggest paychecks in 2025.

Topping the list, former Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin Jr.

Before he stepped down from running the most populous town in the nation, he was making more than $179,000 a year.

Dan Panico was right behind Clavin with a salary of $173,000 a year.

Brookhaven is Suffolk's most populous town, close to a half million residents.

It's also geographically larger than the entire county of Nassau.

In third was Huntington Town Supervisor, Ed Smith taking home more than $162,000 overall.

>> Long Island supervisors' salaries across the island increased by a little bit more than 2%.

Another newsday investigation found people of color were subjected to use of force by police at a disproportionate rate.

Payton Guion has that story.

Get down!

[ expletive ] Get down!

Get the f*** down on the ground!

Warren White says he was working on his yard when police officers rushed onto his property.

Two or three of the cops came up, they knelt on me, put the handcuff.

While they were in the process, the plain-coats cop ran up, kicked me in the shoulder and cursed at me.

White recalls being told he was the main suspect in the officer's shooting only blocks away.

Shortly after he was handcuffed, body camera footage obtained by Newsday shows officers saying White did not match the suspect's description.

The suspect had barricaded himself in a house about half a mile away.

Still, officers detained White for more than an hour.

They also held White's son, his wife, and his wife's grandmother.

Why at that point, they didn't just let us go?

Why parade us?

In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order aimed at reducing police use of force and addressing racial disparities in policing across the state.

Executive order 203 required any municipality that had a police department to submit a police reform plan by April of 2021.

The Newsday investigation has found the goals of reducing force and addressing racial disparities in policing so far have not been achieved.

So we were hoping that EO203 would at least provide more transparency and accountability and it really has not.

Newsday found that police statewide were using more force in 2024 than in 2021 and that Black New Yorkers are still arrested and subject to police force at disproportionate rates.

Our investigation also found that Black people were nearly 11 times as likely to be subject to force by the Nassau and Suffolk police departments as white people were relative to population.

Critics say that a lack of oversight at the state level has contributed to the reforms failing to meet their goals.

And nobody ever said anyone was going to read the plans.

Nobody ever said anyone was going to evaluate the plans or follow up on the plans.

They merely had to submit the plans.

That's it.

Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina cautioned against making comparisons to 2021 when the pandemic affected police activity.

Catalina said, quote, "Using 2021 as a baseline for police statistics is not representative because COVID-19 significantly altered crime patterns, mobility, reporting practices, and police deployment."

But Newsday compared arrest data to use of force in order to account for the pandemic-related decrease in police activity.

Nassau County Police Department declined comment on this story.

Often missing from discussions of police use of force is the long-term impact these incidents have on the people who experience them.

Every day I feel like I'm reliving the moment.

I go to bed, I'm sleeping, and if I hear a helicopter going right there, my heart starts racing.

I had to go to therapy for a long time just to help me to cope with this whole situation.

I cannot see it any other way that our skin color played a major factor in how they treated us.

For Warren and Shereen White, this incident has made them question whether they want to remain in Suffolk County.

Payton Guion, Newsday TV.

A new plan in the town of Babylon could help ease the island's housing crunch.

It's an idea that would potentially transform an already busy stretch of Route 110 in East Farmingdale.

Virginia Huey has the details.

It's so congested over here anyway.

The least last thing that we need on 110.

If that's the entrance is more cars.

If it's housing that's affordable, then that's great.

The town of Babylon is proposing an overlay zoning district that would allow for nearly 1400 residential units to be built in the parking lot of Airport Plaza Shopping Center in East Farmingdale and on surrounding properties.

We're all for development, but not if it's going to hurt us.

Nancy Simpson is a 56 year resident of Farmingdale and a civic leader.

She and her members are concerned about higher tax assessments should the developers seek tax breaks to the town.

They're also worried about congestion on Route 110 between the D.O.T.

Property in the airport plaza.

We're already looking at 800 apartments and a warehouse center across the street, all of which is going to add greatly to the traffic at this intersection.

But Farmingdale Chamber of Commerce President Joseph Garcia said the proposal would help address housing needs while also boosting the local economy.

Local small business still is really the driver of the economic engine of Farmingdale and Long Island and to feed that engine we need people to live here.

Over the past 20 years there have been a number of development proposals pitched for the area which were rejected by local residents who complained the plans were too large for the space.

The Town of Babylon said they took that into consideration when coming up with the Overlake District Proposal.

This proposal is very specific and strategic in terms of where the redevelopment can occur and the resources that will be needed as well as the number of units that will be created.

We need to determine what's the sweet spot for what we can absorb in the area.

For Newsday TV, I'm Virginia Huley.

Joining me now to talk more about this is Newsday's Town of Babylon reporter Denise Bonilla, Babylon Town Supervisor Richard Schaefer, and Woodland Civic Association President Nancy Cypser.

Thank you all for being here with us, we really appreciate your time.

Denise, we want to start with you.

You've been reporting on this.

Give us a little bit more detail about the kind of housing that's being planned for this area here.

Sure, so basically we're talking about five properties on the east side of Route 110.

And those properties are currently zoned light industrial.

And what the overlay district would do would essentially allow for multi-residential and mixed-use housing on those properties.

So the way it's being proposed is that it would be up to 40 units of residential, multi-residential units per acre allowed, or 32 mixed use units allowed.

And there would have to be a minimum of 20% of those units that would be affordable housing.

>> Okay, something we need here on Long Island, the 20% there would be helpful.

Rich, Virginia mentioned in her story that part of the plan is to build over parking lots.

How would that work?

There are some concerns with that for the business.

- Sure, well if you take a look at Airport Plaza, that was built back in the 90s in order to restore the property that was once known as Fairchild Republic.

And Nancy worked for Grumman, which was a military contractor.

And so that property sat vacant for a number of years.

The movie theater was built, and now with the way movie theaters are designed, it's luxury seating that you can basically camp out in.

It doesn't require a lot of parking stalls, and you can see on any one given night, vacant parking stalls on that property.

So we would do something called an infill, which would be Kimco Realty, which owns that property, would then come in and build units.

I think they're looking at about 360 units around the movie theater and around Airport Plaza.

So it almost created a small village in that area.

So that's how you would address that.

Across the street, New York State's been very aggressive at, and under Governor Hochul's leadership, trying to figure out how once and for all we can get rid of that eyesore, the last of the Fairchild buildings that sits on Conklin.

That's become a major problem for the East Farmingdale Fire Department in responding there.

So how do we get rid of that and make it vibrant once again, both on the tax rolls, as well as providing opportunities for temporary construction jobs, as well as permanent jobs and housing.

- Well, Nancy, we heard from you, maybe not too excited about this plan, some concerns about the impact on taxes, on traffic.

Tell us about that.

What are you concerned about with this?

- Well, right out of the gate, I have to say that I'm definitely in support of more housing on Long Island, definitely.

And I know there are some concerns that people have that it's going to increase the population.

I think what it's going to actually do is get people out of their parents' basements into their own homes if there were more available units, as long as they're actually affordable units.

And so, you know, on the surface, it would appear that the property at the airport plaza is, it's a good idea.

There's plenty of space.

You have, you know, you have entertainment, you have restaurants, you have, you have things there at the airport plaza that would attract people to want to live there.

So it sounds like a good idea.

However, in this particular spot, there are two very, very critical, as far as this neighborhood is concerned, very critical problems.

And that's what we're mostly concerned about.

That there has to be a way, especially with the traffic at that intersection, to mitigate the problem.

And I know the town has already put forward-- back when they were talking about 2,700 units over at the airport plaza, they were talking about different approaches that they could use, slowing traffic down, bus rapid transit.

I'm not confident that any solution is really going to lessen the traffic at the Conklin and 110 intersection.

I think, and I don't know how feasible this is, but I would like to, you're going to be doing environmental studies, I would like to explore potentially the possibility of expanding Conklin east of the airport plaza so that it can feed with four lanes instead of two onto Wellwood Avenue and maybe that also a north-south route could divert some of the traffic away from the route 110 Conklin intersection.

One of the things of the problems that we had over the years is 110 was built piecemeal, was built out in piecemeal.

So Conklin and 110 is probably one of the busiest intersections on the island.

This I think is a great opportunity because once we create the overlay district, nothing will move forward until we deal with the two biggest questions, which is traffic and how do we mitigate and come up with ideas like what Nancy just suggested, which is what we're looking at as part of this, requiring that to be a part of this.

And the good news is we've got Governor Hochul and her team really interested in this because it's going to resolve an issue that she brought up right out of the box when she was installed as governor, that she wanted to address the shortage of 800,000 units statewide.

So Rich, you say this plan addresses two important issues.

We've touched on them a little bit, but what are those important issues?

Well, one has to do with what Nancy mentioned, the eyesore of the building that exists there.

It's basically a safety hazard at this point.

In fact, we've told the East Farmingdale Fire Department, "Don't go in there."

And the chief and I agree because we don't want to put the men and women of the department at risk.

I think this is a great opportunity.

Again, Governor Hochul and her team have given us this opportunity because we tried for years to get the previous administration to move this forward, to do something.

And the good news is that you have people like Nancy who are committed, spending their own time, volunteer time, to want to make the community better.

And we can't ask for anything more of having her and the people involved in not only her civic, but all the other community organizations giving the input and like she said, addressing the other issue, which is traffic.

We know traffic is there and we know it's one of the busiest intersections, but I think this is a great opportunity because one of the things that comes with Governor Hochul's involvement is there's a pot of money that's made available to developments like this and to accomplish a widening of Conklin is going to cost a lot of money that we just don't have and so that's where we can say to the governor and and her team, "Hey, here's all the ideas we came up with with how to really do this well.

Send us the money and we'll make sure it gets done."

Alright, so speaking of, if this proposal does not get approved, are there other plans to address, specifically the housing shortage?

Well, we have throughout the town and not just particularly in East Farmingdale, we have done different downtown redevelopments like in Copiague.

Tony Martinez, our deputy supervisor, has kind of quarterbacked that effort down there.

We've created probably about 1,200 units in the downtown Copiague area around the Copiague train station.

Wyndanch Rising, which is another redevelopment, major redevelopment that started under former supervisor Steve Bellone and has really entered the third phase of redevelopment.

You go over there and you can see there's about 2,500 units.

We're now entering the ownership phase of that, which is going to be townhouses.

And now we're looking at the Hamlet of Deer Park.

The town still has to conduct a state environmental quality study.

That's expected sometime next month.

The plan must also be approved by the town board.

So a lot of steps to clear here before this could possibly become a reality.

We'll stay on top of it.

My thanks to Denise Bonilla, Nancy Cypser, and Supervisor Richard Schaefer for their time.

You can read more about this on our website, Newsday.com.

From all of us at Newsday, thank you for joining us for "Island Insider" as we explore the issues that affect Long Islanders.

For all the stories we've just shown you, and much more, head to Newsday.com.

I'm Doug Geed.

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