First posted on Instagram
New York's top prosecutors had little to say on Thursday when a reporter pressed them at a Manhattan news conference about a House Judiciary Committee report accusing the city's district attorneys of downgrading criminal charges to shield illegal immigrants from deportation. Asked whether any of them had ordered prosecutors to downgrade gun charges to keep illegal immigrants in the United States, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz threw up her hands and shrugged, saying, "Our answer couldn't help it," before a moderator cut the exchange short and moved on to "any other on-topic questions."
The question came from a reporter for the New York Post at a gun-safety news conference attended by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Katz and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. The three stared blank-faced at the question, according to the Post's account, and gave no detailed answer before the news conference moved on.
The exchange followed the release of a 22-page interim staff report from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, published on October 26 and titled "New York City: The Dangerous Consequences of Sanctuary Policies." The report accuses the district attorneys of all five boroughs — Katz in Queens, Darcel Clark in the Bronx, Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn and Michael McMahon on Staten Island — of tailoring criminal charges and plea agreements so that noncitizen defendants avoid convictions that would trigger deportation, based on internal training documents, prosecutorial guidelines and communications obtained through the committee's oversight work.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is cited in the report for a January 2022 memorandum directing prosecutors to "seek dispositions that avoid immigration consequences for all misdemeanors, and all felonies for which non-carceral outcomes are the presumptive outcome." Bragg's office told the committee the policy is "outdated" and said it has been replaced with guidance giving individual prosecutors discretion on a case-by-case basis, according to correspondence from June 2026 cited by investigators.
The report's other findings include a Queens "Immigration Specialist" who helps negotiate "immigration-safe" plea bargains and reduce past convictions — including a May 2026 email in which a Queens prosecutor told a police detective the office had "basically made a [plea] deal which is 'immigration safe'" while the defendant still pleaded to multiple crimes and served jail time — and a Bronx guide to "Immigration-Conscious Plea Bargaining" that trains prosecutors to offer non-deportable offenses, avoid aggravated felony charges and use hypothetical charges such as "attempted reckless assault." Investigators also allege prosecutors were instructed to leave facts such as firearm involvement, domestic relationships and the ages of minor victims out of conviction records so federal immigration authorities could not use them as grounds for removal.
The committee's press release put it bluntly: the five district attorneys "ensure prosecutors in their offices give preferential treatment to foreign nationals based solely on their immigration status — all so that criminal aliens can avoid deportation and remain in the United States indefinitely." The committee argues the practices distort crime statistics and undermine federal immigration enforcement.
Katz's office pushed back on the gun-charge allegation after the news conference. "We charge any defendant with an illegal firearm with the highest possible charge under the law," a spokesperson for Katz told Fox News Digital and the Post, adding that the office does not show leniency in weapons cases.
The fallout continued on Friday, when Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York wrote to Attorney General James demanding answers about whether her office directed or coordinated with prosecutors to alter firearm charges based on immigration consequences, whether she was aware of such policies, and whether she supports or opposes them. Tenney called it "deeply troubling that prosecutors are reducing or eliminating firearm charges to protect foreign nationals from deportation."
No prosecutor has been charged over the practices described in the report, and the report itself is an interim staff document from the committee's Republican majority; the district attorneys dispute the committee's characterization of their policies. The report lands amid a wider national debate over sanctuary policies and whether local prosecutors should weigh immigration consequences when charging cases.