Hochul’s selfish anti-ICE grandstanding is just another gift to the far left

Consider it a damning bit of indecision: Word out of Albany is that Gov. Kathy Hochul is still pondering whether to push the Legislature to pass her anti-ICE proposals right away, or hold off to have them become law as part of the state budget, months down the line.

Huh? If she really believe US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are “grabbing people off the street” without cause and thinks her “Local Law, Local Cops” legislative package is the answer — as she claimed when she revealed it last month — then why would she wait? 

Obviously, because it’s actually only about pumping up her own political image in her re-election year.

Oh, and about bashing her Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman: That’s why her central push is to prevent local law enforcement from working with the feds on immigration at all — doing just that has been central to his work fighting gangs like MS-13 in Nassau.

Hence her desire to keep milking the “fight” for several months by passing it in the state budget.

Yet that brings real risks of encouraging her party’s extremists: Lefty lawmakers want passage of the “New York For All Act,” which would codify new protections for illegal immigrants and outlaw even more cooperation between local law enforcement and the feds.

Progressives also want to create a New York right to counsel in immigration court — as if any state can impose anything on federal courts.

In other words, the gov’s not just milking the most fraught national issue for her own personal benefit, she’s enabling the hard left to also milk to further its takeover of New York’s Democratic Party.

Hochul claims to be a moderate, but she’s the left’s very willing accomplice as long as it serves her needs.