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Kevin Riford
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has made opposition to ICE a recurring theme of her public agenda. Her speeches, press conferences and policy proposals repeatedly portray federal immigration enforcement as a threat to New Yorkers and emphasize that state and local resources should not be used to assist ICE.
But this article isn’t about whether ICE should exist, whether immigration enforcement is good or bad, or whether Hochul’s immigration policies are right or wrong. It’s about following the money.
Because when the rhetoric is stripped away and the dollars are traced, a different question emerges.
Do Gov. Hochul’s actions, appointments and political relationships match the picture she presents when she talks about ICE?
Picture source: https://www.dailypublic.com/articles/09052017/jeremy-jacobs-buffalos-billionaire-deportation-profiteer
A look at Hochul’s relationship with Buffalo’s powerful Jacobs family raises some interesting questions.
The Hochul Appointment
On March 13, 2025, the University at Buffalo announced that Gov. Kathy Hochul had appointed Jeremy “Jerry” Jacobs Jr. as chairman of the University at Buffalo Council.
Jacobs is the chief executive officer of Delaware North, the global hospitality and entertainment company owned by the Jacobs family. UB describes its council as the university’s primary oversight and advisory body to UB, its president and senior officers. Jacobs Jr. succeeded his father, Jeremy Jacobs Sr., who had chaired the UB Council.
The younger Jacobs had already served three terms on the UB Foundation Board, including time on its executive board. UB also identifies the Jacobs family’s longstanding “philanthropic” relationship with the university.
Today, Jerry Jacobs Jr. remains chairman of the UB Council and has taken on an even more consequential role: he launched the search for UB’s next president and serves as chair of the presidential search committee.
So this was not a ceremonial appointment.
Hochul placed the CEO of Delaware North in charge of an important governing body at one of New York’s largest public universities.
And that brings us to ICE.
ICE Is in the Building
A 2017 investigation by The Public reported that Delaware North’s corporate headquarters at 250 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo also housed local offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The article described Delaware North as the company owned by Jeremy Jacobs and his family and identified Jacobs Sr. as chairman of the UB Council at the time. It also described Jacobs Sr. as the largest local donor to Donald Trump.
The current organization Evict ICE 250 Delaware likewise identifies Delaware North’s global headquarters as being directly above the ICE offices at 250 Delaware Avenue.
source: https://www.evictice250delaware.com/
The CEO of Delaware North was appointed by Kathy Hochul to chair the UB Council while an ICE office operates in the same building as Delaware North’s Buffalo headquarters.
The Connection Didn’t Begin With Hochul’s Appointment
The Hochul-Jacobs relationship actually goes back much further than 2025.
In a 2017 investigation, The Public reported that William Hochul, Kathy Hochul’s husband, had joined Delaware North as general counsel in October 2016.
William Hochul had previously served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York.
The timing was notable because, according to the publication, his tenure as U.S. Attorney included a major workplace immigration raid involving ICE.
Again, there is nothing inherently improper about a former U.S. Attorney becoming general counsel of a major corporation.
But the connection is nevertheless striking when viewed alongside what happened later.
The husband of the woman who would go on to become one of New York’s most vocal critics of ICE worked for the company whose Buffalo headquarters housed an ICE office.
Years later, his wife appointed the company’s CEO to chair the UB Council.
That is not speculation.
It is a documented sequence of events.
The Trump Connection
Then there is the politics.
The Public reported in 2017 that Jeremy Jacobs Sr. was the largest local donor to Donald Trump. The publication reported that Jacobs family members and businesses they controlled contributed at least $167,700 to Trump’s campaign, joint fundraising committee and inauguration committee.
That figure included a $100,000 contribution from Jeremy Jacobs Sr. to the Trump Victory joint fundraising committee, according to The Public‘s reporting.
It is important to be precise here.
The appropriate characterization is that Jeremy Jacobs Sr. was identified by The Public as Trump’s largest local donor. That is different from saying he was Trump’s largest donor nationally.
The distinction matters because this article is about documented relationships, not exaggeration.
And the relationship becomes particularly interesting because Trump made aggressive immigration enforcement a central part of his political agenda, while Hochul has built a significant portion of her own political messaging around opposing what she describes as ICE overreach.
Yet Hochul appointed Jacobs Sr.’s son to lead the UB Council.
And Then There Are the Hochul Campaign Contributions
There is another part of this relationship that deserves attention: campaign money.
Campaign-finance records supplied for review show members of the Jacobs family making substantial contributions to Friends for Kathy Hochul, Hochul’s authorized campaign committee.
Among the transactions visible in the records provided for this article are:
- Jay S. Jacobs — $20,000 — December 6, 2021
- Toby Jacobs — $25,000 — June 21, 2022
- Jay S. Jacobs — $20,161.81 — September 27, 2022
- Jay S. Jacobs — $18,000 — July 9, 2024
- Mindy Jacobs — $18,000 — July 11, 2024
Those five transactions alone total $101,161.81.
The records identify each contribution as going to Friends for Kathy Hochul, and identify the contributors as individuals.
That distinction is important: $101,161.81 is the total of the transactions shown here, not the total amount contributed by the entire Jacobs family to Hochul.
You can search full the amount of money here: https://publicreporting.elections.ny.gov/ContributionsByRecipient/ContributionsByRecipient
The larger point is that the relationship isn’t simply that Hochul appointed a prominent Buffalo businessman.
There is also a documented political-financial relationship between members of the Jacobs family and Hochul’s campaign committee.
Buffalo Immigration Judge Denise Hochul
Denise C. Hochul is Kathy Hochul’s sister-in-law. She is the sister of William J. Hochul Jr., Kathy Hochul’s husband.
Denise Hochul also has a lengthy history inside the federal immigration-enforcement system. She worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service/ICE in Buffalo for nearly two decades, including as an assistant chief counsel, before becoming an Immigration Judge on the Buffalo Immigration Court in January 2016. Her federal legal career also included service as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of New York.
That creates another striking dimension to the Hochul family’s relationship with immigration enforcement. Kathy Hochul’s own sister-in-law spent nearly 20 years working for the federal immigration-enforcement apparatus that the governor now so frequently condemns.
And William Hochul Jr.—Denise’s brother and Kathy Hochul’s husband—was himself the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York before becoming general counsel of Delaware North, the company run by the Jacobs family.
source: https://tracreports.org/immigration/reports/judge2024/00442BUF/index.html
One thing is clear: the Hochul family’s own history is deeply intertwined with the federal immigration and law-enforcement system.
That is a significant fact to consider when the governor presents herself as one of ICE’s most outspoken opponents.
Follow the Timeline
Put the pieces together and the timeline becomes difficult to ignore.
1998: Jeremy Jacobs Sr. becomes chairman of the University at Buffalo Council.
2015: The Jacobs family makes what UB describes as a historic gift to the university, and the university’s medical school carries the Jacobs name.
2016: William Hochul, Kathy Hochul’s husband, joins Delaware North as general counsel, according to The Public.
2017: The Public reports that ICE offices operate inside the Delaware North headquarters at 250 Delaware Avenue and identifies Jeremy Jacobs Sr. as the largest local donor to Donald Trump.
2021–2024: Members of the Jacobs family make substantial contributions to Friends for Kathy Hochul, including more than $101,000 in the transactions shown in the campaign-finance records reviewed for this article.
2025: Hochul appoints Jeremy “Jerry” Jacobs Jr., CEO of Delaware North, as chairman of the UB Council.
2025–2026: Jacobs Jr. assumes a significant leadership role at UB and eventually becomes chair of the search committee looking for the university’s next president.
2026: Hochul’s administration continues an aggressive public campaign against what it calls ICE overreach, proposing restrictions on the use of state and local resources for civil immigration enforcement.
This is the story.
Not one isolated event.
A relationship that stretches across business, family, philanthropy, politics, campaign contributions, a public university and ICE.
The Larger Problem With Political Rhetoric
Politicians often want voters to evaluate them based on their speeches.
But government is not conducted from a podium.
It is conducted through appointments.
Contracts.
Campaigns.
Boards.
Relationships.
Donations.
And decisions.
Hochul can passionately condemn ICE while appointing Jerry Jacobs Jr.
She can oppose federal immigration enforcement while maintaining relationships with a family whose business headquarters house an ICE office.
She can criticize Donald Trump’s immigration policies while appointing the son of one of Trump’s biggest local financial supporters to a powerful university position.
Together, they create a legitimate question about the difference between political rhetoric and political reality.
And that question becomes even more relevant when the people involved have donated substantial sums to the governor’s campaign.
When Kathy Hochul tells New Yorkers what she believes about ICE, do her actions—and the people she chooses to empower—tell the same story?
Feel free to read my two Epstein Articles regarding Kathy Hochul & Jermey Jacobs: