Caribbean immigration advocates, lawmakers, and allies of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) gathered on the New York State Capitol this week to name for the pressing passage of the New York For All Act earlier than the legislative session ends.
The proposed laws goals to ban state and native businesses—together with legislation enforcement—from collaborating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It might additionally ban the sharing of non-public information and limit using state assets to assist federal immigration enforcement.
The NYIC, which represents over 2,000 immigrant advocacy teams, stated the act is essential to making sure that every one New Yorkers, no matter immigration standing, can entry public companies and take part of their communities with out concern. The group added that the legislation would reinforce the separation between state and federal immigration coverage, whereas preserving native assets and defending immigrant households from what it described as former President Donald Trump’s “punitive, politically-driven immigration agenda.”
“When neighbourhoods concern contact with legislation enforcement, crimes go unreported and precise criminals function with impunity,” NYIC acknowledged. “New York For All would restore that important belief by creating clear boundaries between native authorities and federal immigration enforcement, in order that police might deal with their major mission of conserving communities protected, relatively than serving as immigration brokers.”
NYIC President and CEO Murad Awawdeh emphasised the urgency of passing the act. “As we shortly method the top of the legislative session, we demand that our elected officers take pressing motion to guard our immigrant neighbours and group members from ICE,” he informed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC).
“We demand that New York state not be complicit in Trump’s marketing campaign of terror towards our communities as ICE seizes our neighbours at court docket hearings, dropping their youngsters off in school, at their locations of labor or driving to a physician’s workplace — separating households, gutting our communities and damaging our financial system,” he added. “Now’s the time to cross New York For All.”
Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson echoed these considerations. “It’s time for the New York State Legislature and governor to do the identical by passing New York for All,” he stated. Johnson recounted private experiences with what he described as illegal coordination between native legislation enforcement and ICE, together with a current seatbelt checkpoint in Cohoes arrange with ICE involvement. “These rampant assaults on the lives and rights of our group should finish,” he stated.
Linda Flor Brito, senior coverage and campaigns organiser with the Immigrant Defence Venture, additionally pointed to ICE’s collaboration with native businesses as a key consider household separations and long-term group trauma. “New York should cease being complicit – whether or not by colluding with ICE for all to see or by doing it behind closed doorways,” she stated. “The Legislature should intervene now by passing NY4All to guard New York households; something much less can be a failure.”
Zach Ahmad of the New York Civil Liberties Union stated lawmakers should act decisively. “New York state lawmakers shouldn’t sit idly by because the Trump administration wreaks havoc on New York’s immigrant communities — they need to cross the New York For All Act now,” he stated.
With only one week remaining within the session, Rosie Wang of the Vera Institute of Justice warned that additional delay would hurt households. “President Trump’s mass anti-immigrant agenda is tearing households and communities aside,” she stated. “The Legislature should act now and cross New York for All.”
Awawdeh additionally highlighted the broader societal advantages of lowering ICE’s footprint in native governance. “Municipalities that restrict ICE collusion are confirmed to have financial advantages for all and to be safer than those who divert their native assets to ICE’s anti-immigrant agenda,” he stated.
He famous that immigrants maintain important jobs throughout sectors corresponding to healthcare, elder care, and building—roles usually crammed by asylum seekers and newly arrived employees. “The New York For All Act will assist and defend our neighbours, colleagues, pals, and household by quelling the concern that merely going to work or looking for assist in an emergency might lead to them being torn from household,” he stated. “The time is now for Albany to cross New York for All.”
