Three Law-and-Order Posts in Three Days. No Mention of the $87 Million in Police Funding Still Withheld From New York.

Rule of Law / Public Safety Source: Facebook Posts (campaign and official pages) MISSING CONTEXT

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Why this matters

The State Homeland Security Program is the federal grant that helps pay for planning, equipment, and training at county sheriffs’ offices and police departments in every county in New York — including all eight counties of NY-23. For nearly a year, part of that money has been withheld by the Trump administration, despite a presidential promise to restore it and a federal court order that forced partial payment. In the last week of August, Rep. Langworthy posted three times about supporting law enforcement. None of the posts mentions the withheld money, and no statement from him about it could be located anywhere.

Statements

Source: Facebook, campaign page (“Nick Langworthy”), August 26, 2026, 1:55 PM, sharing a New York Post op-ed titled “Hochul’s ban on cops working with ICE is an attack on public safety”:

“The Attorney General’s job is to be the chief law enforcement of the state, not to go to war with her law enforcement partners. Our sheriffs are on the frontlines of keeping our communities safe from dangerous criminals and they should be supported not prevented from working with federal law enforcement to do their jobs. Disgraceful.”

Source: Facebook, official office page (“Congressman Nick Langworthy”), August 28, 2026, on the relocated DHS career expo in Buffalo:

“The left hates law and order and the brave men and women who enforce it… This critical U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement job fair will go on”

A third post on the campaign page the same morning (August 26, 10:54 AM, sharing a Fox Business story) attributed New York’s troubles in part to “the dismantling of our criminal justice system.”

The Facts

The expo

The Department of Homeland Security scheduled a two-day hiring expo for September 1–2, 2026 at the Buffalo Convention Center. The venue canceled it on August 27 after Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz urged the convention center to drop the event over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s participation. Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of the convention center’s operator, said it had asked DHS to hold the expo without ICE — with all other law enforcement agencies participating — before canceling. DHS moved the event to U.S. Coast Guard Sector Eastern Great Lakes on Fuhrmann Boulevard, where it ran September 1–2 and drew thousands of job seekers.

Two details in the Congressman’s post don’t match that record. The event is a DHS-wide career expo — Coast Guard, CBP, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and others — not an “ICE job fair.” And the venue’s own account was that it offered to host every other law enforcement agency, which is difficult to square with a dispute about hating “law and order and the brave men and women who enforce it.” The objection, whatever one thinks of it, was to one agency.

The money his posts don’t mention

While those posts went up, this was the status of the federal grant money that funds the sheriffs and police he was writing about:

DateWhat happened
2025 (delayed NOFO)DHS’s FY2025 Homeland Security Grant Program funding notice cut New York’s allocation by 40 percent, about $87 million
Sept 27, 2025At award issuance, DHS cut an additional $102.7 million without stated explanation — $187 million total, 86 percent of New York’s funding. SHSP fell from $61,229,940 (FY2024) to $5,624,924, a 90.8 percent cut; UASI fell 85.9 percent
Sept 29, 2025Attorney General James and 11 other state attorneys general sued DHS in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island over the award-stage cut
Oct 3, 2025President Trump posted on Truth Social that he had “reversed the cuts made to Homeland Security and Counterterrorism for New York City and State”
Dec 2025The court granted the states summary judgment and ordered DHS to restore funding to committed levels; DHS appealed, then dropped the appeal
Sept 1, 2026Gov. Hochul’s office: only about $100 million has been delivered — after the court order — leaving nearly $87 million still withheld. The state itemizes the two largest components as $63,278,152 in UASI funding and $17,687,197 in SHSP funding

In plain language: the federal government cut New York’s counterterrorism and police-preparedness grants nearly to zero last fall, the President said he had reversed the cuts, a court order later forced part of the money out, and almost a year after the promise, roughly $87 million — including $17.7 million from the program that funds county sheriffs and police departments statewide — still has not arrived. The New York State Comptroller’s office notes that “all counties in New York State receive SHSP funding.” That includes Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Schuyler, Steuben, and Tioga.

What his colleagues did, and what he said

When the cuts landed in the fall of 2025, other New York Republicans went public. Rep. Malliotakis said she called President Trump directly. Rep. Lawler said he “made clear that these cuts were unacceptable” from day one. Rep. Garbarino, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, publicly urged DHS to reverse course. There was no delegation letter — the appeals were individual public statements.

As of September 3, 2026, no public statement from Rep. Langworthy on the HSGP cuts, the withheld $87 million, or the partial restoration could be located in his House press-release archive or on either of his Facebook pages. His August 26 post says sheriffs “should be supported”; the search found no instance of him addressing the federal grant money that supports them.

The vote that funds the hiring surge

The expo he did post about exists because of a law he voted for. H.R. 1, the July 2025 reconciliation law, provided ICE roughly $75 billion over four years, funding the recruitment drive the Buffalo expo served. Langworthy voted Aye (Roll Call 190). That vote and the funding disparity can both be true; the point is that the enforcement expansion he supported is fully funded and publicly celebrated, while the local-police grant money is withheld and unmentioned.

The fair reading

  • “This critical… job fair will go on” was accurate. The expo was relocated, not stopped, and it ran September 1–2 as he said it would.
  • The dispute he weighed in on is real. The state Attorney General’s guidance limiting local police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement is a genuine, contested policy question. Criticizing it is ordinary political speech, and this entry takes no position on it.
  • The withheld money is not his doing. The cuts were made by DHS and FEMA, executive agencies; no House vote created them. A member of Congress does not control grant disbursement. What this entry documents is a messaging asymmetry — three posts on law and order in three days, none acknowledging the largest law-enforcement funding story in the state — not a vote or an action.
  • There was no letter he declined to sign. The October 2025 appeals by his colleagues were individual. His absence from the public record is documented silence, not a refusal of a specific ask.
  • Credit for the partial restoration is contested. Republican colleagues cite their appeals to the President; the state credits its lawsuit and the December court order, which preceded the $100 million payment. Both can have mattered.

Update — September 4, 2026: A Fourth Post, and a More Accurate Description of the Expo

On September 2, 2026 at 1:10 PM, while the expo was running, the official office page posted about it again:

“Chalk one up for the good guys. The radical left could not stop the Department of Homeland Security Job Fair in WNY. Going on right now. Here’s details if you’re looking for noble work that pays well and protects the homeland.”

The post links to the DHS expo page. Three things follow from it.

This time he described the event accurately. Question 3 below asks why the August 28 official-page post called a DHS-wide career expo an “ICE job fair.” The September 2 post calls it “the Department of Homeland Security Job Fair,” which matches the record. The question stands as to the earlier post, but the later description is the correct one and this entry credits it.

“Going on right now” was accurate. The expo ran September 1–2 at U.S. Coast Guard Sector Eastern Great Lakes, and the post went up midday on the second day.

The framing and the omission are unchanged. “The radical left could not stop” restates the characterization of the August 28 post on the official office page. The convention center operator’s account is also unchanged: it said it had offered to host the expo with every other law enforcement agency participating, and objected to one. And as of September 4, 2026, no public statement from Rep. Langworthy on the withheld $87 million — including the $17.7 million in SHSP funding that flows to sheriffs and police departments in all eight NY-23 counties — could be located in his House press archive or on either Facebook page.

Update — September 11, 2026: Two More Posts, the ICE Law in His Own Counties, and Still No Word on the $87 Million

On September 10 and 11 the campaign page posted twice more on the same theme, each with a clip of Gov. Hochul:

“Kathy Hochul has it backwards: she shields violent, criminal, illegal immigrants while shackling the cops trying to protect your family. I’ve confronted her in Congress over these radical, reckless policies before. I won’t back down in my mission to back the blue.”

“Kathy Hochul fights for violent illegal immigrants who attack, rape, and kill innocent New Yorkers while putting the handcuffs on law enforcement. We hauled her before Congress before to answer for her dangerous policies & I won’t give up until sanity is restored to your public safety.”

That makes six law-enforcement-themed posts since August 26. Screenshots are on file. Three things in the record bear on them.

The law he is describing, and what it did in NY-23. The “handcuffs” are the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, signed May 27, 2026 as part of the state budget. It bars local agencies from 287(g) agreements, the contracts under which local officers perform civil immigration enforcement for ICE, and it voided existing agreements as of August 25. The Attorney General notified the twelve New York agencies that had such agreements. Three were in this district: the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office, the Steuben County Sheriff’s Office, and the Allegany village police department. Both sheriffs complied by the deadline, and both said the same thing about what the law took away. Cattaraugus Sheriff Eric Butler, August 25: “What the law prohibits is our participation through a formal 287(g) agreement in civil immigration enforcement—something our deputies were not doing in the first place,” adding that the “real practical effect” is the loss of federal compensation for deputies’ time. Steuben County Legislature chair Kelly Fitzpatrick, on the county’s task-force agreement: “I don’t believe we’ve participated in any of those sorts of actions… Our deputies have plenty of other work to do otherwise.” Sheriff Butler has joined the fifteen-sheriff federal lawsuit against the ban; Steuben Sheriff James Allard sent ICE a termination letter on August 25 and, per Fingerlakes1, was among four sheriffs subpoenaed by the Attorney General the same week over compliance. Both sheriffs say they will keep cooperating with ICE on criminal matters, which the law permits. ICE’s own numbers point the same way: the agency publishes monthly encounter reports for its 287(g) partners, and for May, June and July 2026 it reported one encounter in all of New York, in Cattaraugus County on June 5, which began as a grand larceny arrest (Spectrum News, August 18). Whether the ban is good policy is contested and this entry takes no position; what the district’s own sheriffs and ICE’s own reports show is that it did not stop any enforcement the deputies were doing.

“We hauled her before Congress.” Gov. Hochul testified at the Oversight Committee’s June 12, 2025 hearing with sanctuary-state governors. He was present; the transcript roster lists him.

The omission is unchanged. As of September 11, 2026, no statement from Rep. Langworthy on the withheld $87 million, including the $17.7 million in SHSP funds for county law enforcement in all eight NY-23 counties, appears in his House press archive (re-checked; retained list at research/sources/triage-2026-09-11/). His Facebook pages cannot be searched while logged out; the six posts reviewed here are the ones that were supplied. The money remained outstanding as of the Governor’s September 1 release, which is the latest statement on it located. A sixth post about handcuffs on police, from a member whose own counties’ sheriffs and police are owed part of $17.7 million the federal government has not paid, is the gap this entry documents.

Questions this raises

  1. Does the Congressman support release of the remaining $87 million, including the $17.7 million in SHSP funding that flows to county law enforcement in all eight counties he represents?
  2. His August 26 post says sheriffs “should be supported.” Has his office contacted DHS or FEMA about the withheld SHSP funds on behalf of NY-23’s sheriffs and police departments?
  3. Why does the August 28 official-office post describe a DHS-wide career expo — Coast Guard, CBP, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and more — as an “ICE job fair”? (The September 2 post described it accurately; see the September 4 update above.)
  4. Several New York Republican colleagues publicly pressed the administration in October 2025. Did he make any appeal, public or private, and will his office say so?

Sources

The funding record (primary)

The expo

Colleagues’ appeals

The 287(g) ban and the district (September 11 update)

The posts

  • Campaign page, September 10–11, 2026 (“shackling the cops”; “putting the handcuffs on law enforcement”): screenshots on file.
  • Screenshots on file (campaign page, Aug 26, 2026, 1:55 PM and 10:54 AM; official page, Aug 28, 2026); see archive note.
  • Official page, Sept 2, 2026, 1:10 PM (“Chalk one up for the good guys…”), permalink: https://www.facebook.com/RepLangworthy/posts/pfbid02W78H96Zq6SqbLGqWFcN2B2DiYd6ShDfVE1za3Dk9iHayPyJhqsoEdWSVeHF5oHUBl
  • WKBW, “Homeland Security career fair draws thousands of job seekers after move to Coast Guard station” (expo ran Sept 1–2 at USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes): see The expo, above.
  • H.R. 1 ICE funding and Roll Call 190: see the February 2026 shutdown entry and House Clerk Roll 190 (July 3, 2025).

Note: This entry documents publicly available information. It does not allege wrongdoing, and it takes no position on the underlying immigration enforcement policy disputes. The absence of a Langworthy statement on the HSGP cuts reflects a good-faith search of his public record as of the publication date; see the publication note. Rep. Langworthy’s office has not been asked for comment as of this writing, and any response will be published in full.

Last updated: September 11, 2026