NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean immigration advocates have condemned what they describe as United States President Donald J. Trump’s “frivolous and reckless” lawsuit in opposition to New York Metropolis’s Sanctuary Legal guidelines.
The town’s Sanctuary Legal guidelines restrict cooperation between native businesses and the US federal immigration enforcement, significantly the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) company.
These legal guidelines, primarily in place for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, search to guard undocumented Caribbean and different immigrants by prohibiting New York Metropolis officers from sharing details about them with ICE until there’s a warrant or they’re suspected of a severe crime.
On Thursday, Trump’s Justice Division filed a federal lawsuit within the US District Court docket for the Jap District of New York difficult New York Metropolis’s sanctuary insurance policies.
The premise of the 37-page lawsuit is that New York’s native insurance policies are “impeding the session and communication between federal and native regulation enforcement officers that’s mandatory for the USA to implement the regulation and maintain Individuals secure”.
However Murad Awawdeh, president and chief govt officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), informed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC) that “immigrants have constructed and rebuilt New York Metropolis and this nation for hundreds of years, and our native authorities has appropriately welcomed and embraced them as important members of our New York neighborhood.
“Our native legal guidelines are designed to guard the general public security of each single New Yorker,” stated Awawdeh, whose group is an umbrella coverage and advocacy group that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights teams all through New York.
“When native police give attention to defending our neighborhoods somewhat than finishing up the federal authorities’s mass disappearance agenda, each New Yorker can really feel safe sufficient to report crimes, entry emergency providers, and cooperate with investigations with out concern of deportation.
“Sadly, Donald Trump thinks that he and he alone can determine our nation’s native legal guidelines – undermining the tenth modification,” he stated, including that the lawsuit is frivolous at greatest, and an assault on New York’s potential to manipulate itself at worst.
“New York should reject Trump’s continued assaults on its Constitutional proper to cross native legal guidelines that serve our communities greatest. Mayor (Eric) Adams should struggle again in opposition to this federal overreach and defend the well-being of all New Yorkers,” Awawdeh stated, noting current incidents in New York Metropolis that he stated “have fueled fear-mongering and baseless assaults on sanctuary metropolis insurance policies.
Civil rights and immigration lead organizer of Make the Highway New York, Luba Cortés, stated that the town’s Sanctuary Legal guidelines “maintain New York households collectively and uphold the basic values our metropolis was constructed on.
“These legal guidelines are authorized, they usually assist defend all New Yorkers. They’re additionally primarily based on clear and well-established legal guidelines permitting cities to refuse to make use of our metropolis’s sources to collaborate with ICE in snatching and kidnapping our individuals off the streets,” she informed CMC.
“Within the face of Trump’s callous and harmful mass deportation agenda, New York should uphold and defend its sanctuary legal guidelines. We’ll defend them within the courts and the streets,” Cortés added.
Adams, whose corruption costs have been dropped by the Trump administration to help with the president’s mass deportation agenda, is among the many defendants in Trump’s lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the mayor stated Metropolis Corridor will evaluate the lawsuit.
The US Justice Division stated in a press release that it filed the lawsuit in opposition to New York Metropolis, Mayor Adams, and a number of other different metropolis officers “to problem New York’s sanctuary metropolis legal guidelines.
“As detailed within the grievance, New York’s sanctuary insurance policies have allowed harmful criminals to roam the streets and commit heinous crimes throughout the neighborhood,” it stated. “These insurance policies mirror an intentional effort to hinder federal regulation enforcement and thus are preempted beneath the Supremacy Clause of the US Structure.”
US Lawyer Basic Pamela Bondi stated that “New York Metropolis has launched hundreds of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes in opposition to law-abiding residents as a result of sanctuary metropolis insurance policies.
“If New York Metropolis gained’t arise for the protection of its residents, we’ll,” she vowed.
Assistant US Lawyer Basic Brett Shumate additionally stated that for too lengthy, New York Metropolis has been on the forefront of interfering with the enforcement of our immigration legal guidelines.
“Its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement finish now,” he added.
However the New York Metropolis Council, which has typically accused Mayor Adams of colluding with ICE and Trump of their deportation efforts, stated, by way of spokesman Rendy Desamours, that “Pam Bondi might need to distract from actuality, however the information are clear: The proof persistently reveals that cities with sanctuary legal guidelines are safer than these with out them”.
