NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean immigration advocates, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) has collaborated with native member organizations, immigrant group members, and allies in rallying at Van der Donck Park in Yonkers, in suburban New York Metropolis, urging New York State lawmakers to move the New York for All Act earlier than the top of the 2025 legislative session.
Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and CEO, whose umbrella group represents over 200 immigrant and refugee teams in New York, stated that, because the legislative session winds down, immigrant communities are sounding the alarm: “With out speedy motion from Albany (New York State capital), households stay liable to being torn aside via pointless and dangerous collusion between native companies and ICE (the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement company).”
Awawdeh informed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC) that rally contributors referred to as on elected officers to face with their immigrant constituents and “act swiftly to move this important public security and immigrant rights laws.
“Each New Yorker deserves to reside in security, along with their household,” he stated. “Moreover, our economic system is dependent upon the total participation of our immigrant employees.
“However proper now in New York, we’re seeing households being ripped aside by ICE’s more and more aggressive and legally questionable practices,” Awawdeh added. “New York State should arise and battle again in opposition to the phobia Trump is unleashing in our communities.
“We’re rapidly seeing our collective rights – and our sense of humanity – dissolve earlier than our eyes,” he continued. “If there was ever a time to take a stand for immigrants and our shared values, it’s now.
“Earlier than the top of this legislative session, Albany should move the New York For All Act to guard our immigrant neighbors and maintain our households collectively,” Awawdeh stated.
David Imamura, Westchester County Board of Legislators, District 12, stated: “The nationwide resistance to the Trump administration begins domestically. We should move New York For All to make sure that our immigrant brothers and sisters have all of the rights that the State can present in a time when the federal authorities is totally ignoring these rights.”
Jirandy Martinez, government director of Group Useful resource Middle, stated his heart “proudly affirms its unwavering dedication to immigrant households and their proper to reside with dignity, security, and alternative.
“For years, we’ve got stood as a pillar of resilience, serving to our group navigate range, power, and unity,” he added. “New York For All laws is a important step ahead in guaranteeing that no New Yorker, no matter immigration standing, has to reside in concern of being torn from their household or denied entry to important providers.
“This laws protects our neighbors from unjust focusing on, preserves belief in native establishments, and ensures that state and native sources are used to uplift, not endanger, our communities,” Martinez continued. “We name on New York State legislators to move New York for All at once. Collectively, we are going to proceed to construct a future the place each household feels secure, valued, and free to thrive.”
Marni Rabin-Marron, of the group Indivisible Yorktown NY, urged that “NY for All be handed to make sure that all New Yorkers, no matter immigrant standing, are shielded from ICE’s inhumane agenda.
“We can not enable our native sources for use in a predatory method,” he stated. “It’s time for the State of New York to advance a coverage that protects our immigrant neighbors and households.”
Awawdeh stated the New York for All Act is “a landmark piece of laws that may prohibit state and native authorities companies, together with legislation enforcement, from collaborating with ICE, sharing delicate private data, or allocating personnel and sources to help in federal immigration enforcement efforts.”
By reinforcing the separation between native governance and federal immigration insurance policies, he stated the invoice ensures that every one New Yorkers, no matter immigration standing, can entry public providers, care for his or her households, and take part in group life with out concern.
Awawdeh stated municipalities that restrict ICE collusion are confirmed to have financial advantages for all and to be safer than people who divert their native sources to ICE’s anti-immigrant agenda.
He stated over 60 % of residence healthcare employees and aides for older persons are immigrants, and among the more than likely first jobs for Caribbean and different asylum seekers embody nursing assistants, youngster care employees, and development employees — among the most important, hard-to-fill jobs.
Awawdeh stated the New York For All Act will help and defend our neighbors, colleagues, pals, and household by quelling the concern that merely going to work or in search of assist in an emergency may end in them being torn from household.
“The time is now for Albany to move New York for All,” he urged.
