Blakeman shows he’s an immigration centrist while Hochul rushes to the extreme left

Nassau Exec Bruce Blakeman just proved that wanting to work with the feds to deport brutal MS-13 gangbangers and other violent border-jumping criminals doesn’t make you an anti-immigrant extremist: He came out for reforms to let illegal migrants gain some legal status if they’ve been in the country for seven years without committing any fresh crimes.

That shows the GOP gov nominee is with the broad middle of Americans on these issues — welcoming to migrants who look to play by the rules, but un-welcoming to the bad guys.

Blakeman’s idea is to let such peaceable types remain here and work legally — but without a path to citizenship, for which they’d need to repair their original illegal entry.

That’s a nod to how a complete “amnesty” is not only unwise (since it’d encourage future illegal immigration) but a political non-starter, whereas his plan is something Republicans such as President Donald Trump might go along with.

Trump, after all, at times has suggested leniency for illegal migrants who work (as Blakeman puts it) in agriculture, “hospitality, healthcare, landscapers, there’s a lot of different industries that need those workers” — he’s even called for something much like Blakeman’s plan.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, recently signed a law that bans local cops from cooperation with ICE even to expel the worst criminals who have no right to be here.

She’d plainly prefer ICE not deport the 2,200 rapists, murderers, child predators and so on that it nabbed in New York in July alone  

Cozying up to the far left, the gov even just pardoned migrant Keisy Guerrero Mariano on a 2015 assault conviction — clemency issued just in time to prevent the US Supreme Court from taking up Mariano’s case and likely overturning a lower-court ruling that created new rights for “undocumented” criminals facing deportation.

Again proving she has no shame at all, Hochul’s still denouncing Blakeman as an immigration extremist.