NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean immigration advocates, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), allied organizations, and lawmakers have rallied on the New York State Capitol, urging the speedy passage of the New York For All Act earlier than the tip of the present legislative session.
The proposed laws would bar state and native businesses, together with legislation enforcement, from collaborating with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It might prohibit the sharing of private information and stop using personnel and assets to help federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Based on the NYIC, an umbrella physique representing over 2,000 immigrant advocacy teams, the laws would safeguard entry to public providers and participation in neighborhood life with out worry for all New Yorkers, no matter immigration standing, whereas reinforcing the boundary between native governance and federal immigration coverage.
Moreover, NYIC stated the laws preserves vital state and native assets for his or her supposed use inside New York’s numerous communities and blocks using taxpayer {dollars} to help President Donald Trump’s “punitive, politically-driven immigration agenda.”
NYIC stated the New York For All Act could be vital for sustaining public security.
“When neighborhoods worry contact with legislation enforcement, crimes go unreported, and precise criminals function with impunity,” NYIC stated. “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 concentrate on their major mission of retaining communities protected, slightly than serving as immigration brokers.”
NYIC President and CEO Murad Awawdeh informed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC) on Saturday: “As we rapidly strategy the tip of the legislative session, we demand that our elected officers take pressing motion to guard our immigrant neighbors and neighborhood members from ICE.
“We demand that New York State not be complicit in Trump’s marketing campaign of terror towards our communities as ICE seizes our neighbors at courtroom hearings, dropping their youngsters off at college, at their locations of labor or driving to a physician’s workplace – separating households, gutting our communities, and damaging our economic system,” he stated.
“Our communities can not wait any longer for motion from Albany (New York State capital),” Awawdeh added. “Now’s the time to go New York For All.”
Mayor of Hudson, New York, Kamal Johnson, stated: “It’s time for the New York State Legislature and the governor to do the identical by passing New York for All.
“I’ve witnessed first-hand collusion between native and state legislation enforcement and ICE: New York State Troopers calling ICE on a sufferer of home violence; troopers, the DMV (Division of Motor Autos) and Albany County Sheriffs and Cohoes Police Division establishing a seatbelt checkpoint with ICE in Cohoes simply weeks in the past; and myself being pulled over a number of instances by ICE and native legislation enforcement with out cause or cost,” he stated.
“These rampant assaults on the lives and rights of our neighborhood should finish,” Johnson urged.
Linda Flor Brito, senior coverage and campaigns organizer of the Immigrant Protection Mission, stated that ICE’s “entanglement with state and native businesses permits the separation of households, irreparably harming our communities for generations to return.
“New York should cease being complicit – whether or not by colluding with ICE for all to see or by doing it behind closed doorways, like New Yorkers who’re funneled from state jail sentences to ICE, in an act of merciless double punishment,” she stated.
“The Legislature should intervene now by passing NY4All to guard New York households. Something much less could be a failure,” Brito added.
Zach Ahmad, senior coverage counsel of the New York Civil Liberties Union, stated New York State lawmakers mustn’t sit idly by as “the Trump administration wreaks havoc on New York’s immigrant communities — they need to go the New York For All Act now.
“Between raiding workplaces, detaining kids, and busting down individuals’s doorways and not using a warrant, this anti-immigrant administration is hellbent on terrorizing New York’s immigrant communities,” he stated. “New Yorkers should really feel protected and guarded — not watch the very people who find themselves elected to maintain them protected prioritize political pursuits over their wellbeing.”
With just one week left within the legislative session, Rosie Wang, program supervisor for the Advancing Common Illustration initiative at Vera Institute of Justice, stated: “New York can not delay passage of the New for All Act to defend immigrant communities towards federal assaults.
“President Trump’s mass anti-immigrant agenda is tearing households and communities aside, as his administration more and more detains and deports individuals in violation of their rights.
“New York for All prevents our state’s assets from supporting these merciless insurance policies and as a substitute ensures that households stay collectively, communities proceed to develop, and everyone seems to be safer,” she added. “The Legislature should act now and go New York for All.”
Awawdeh stated 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.
“Over 60 p.c of house healthcare staff and aides for the aged are immigrants, and a few of the almost definitely first jobs for asylum seekers embrace nursing assistants, youngster care staff, and building staff — a few of the most important, hard-to-fill jobs,” he stated.
“The New York For All Act will help and shield our neighbors, colleagues, mates, and household by quelling the worry that merely going to work or in search of assist in an emergency might lead to them being torn from household,” Awawdeh added. “The time is now for Albany to go New York for All.”
