Last month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul stood alongside New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a press conference in Manhattan. The purpose: to announce $7.25 million in new legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children and to reaffirm a state law barring local police from formal cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The event was an illustration of a broader pattern in modern American federalism: a governor using her office’s visibility, funding authority, and legal tools to push back against perceived federal overreach or abuses of power.