SUFFOLK COUNTY Sheriff Steve Tompkins insists his decision to sever ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement had nothing to do with protests, and everything to do whether the people in his jail’s cells are destined to remain in the state.

“I was hired to do local, not federal work. The ICE population is transient — they’re not staying here,” Tompkins said on CommonWealth’s Codcast. “But the ladies we’re going to service, they either live in my county or the Commonwealth. They’re staying here. They have kids. They have families. We want them to go back home in better shape than they arrived.”