NDLON Statement on New York’s Inadequate Immigration Enforcement Deal

New York, May 21  — The New York State Assembly and Senate today voted as part of the budget package, approving new measures to impose some limits on federal immigration enforcement. The legislation will limit formal cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and ICE and keep ICE agents away from schools, polling locations and other sensitive places. “It will make New York a leader in addressing ICE overreach while also ensuring that there is no sanctuary for criminals in this state,” Governor Hochul claimed.

The following is a statement from Nadia Marin-Molina, Co-Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON):

“Governor Hochul, this is not enough. You say New York will be a ‘leader’ against ICE overreach. But real leaders don’t leave the job half done in a time of crisis. We need real, solid protections against this lawless Administration, which has violated our constitutional rights with impunity.

“While today’s legislation prohibits state and local agencies from entering formal 287(g) partnerships with ICE, it doesn’t prevent those same pro-Trump sheriffs or police departments from cozying up to the Administration by sharing information informally. In counties like Nassau, we can see that this cozy relationship (whether formal or informal) can have tragic results that destroy both families and local economies. 

“There’s a better bill – New York for All – that would prohibit all formal and informal collaboration between local law enforcement and the federal government. It would prevent New York’s peace officers from collaborating with an Administration that is relentlessly and brutally carrying out President Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s obsessive vision of a whiter, immigrant-free United States.

“The limited progress made in today’s deal has only happened due to statewide organizing pressure, the clear moral voices of many immigrants who have spoken out seeking justice for their family members, and the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. It is not enough. The more Trump goes all-in on Stephen Miller’s white nationalist agenda—taking money from schools, roads, and hospitals to fund ICE—the louder the calls to get ICE out of our communities grow.

“The progress in New York didn’t happen overnight. It is the result of years of organizing that began under the Obama administration, when communities first fought back against the historic mistake of conscripting local police to enforce broken civil immigration laws.

“The tide is turning. Communities are losing their fear of Trump as he grows more desperate and his failures mount. One thing is now undeniable: scapegoating immigrants and sanctuary cities isn’t working. It’s backfiring. The more they manufacture a false threat of immigrants, the more real solidarity we see.

“We will defend the safety of our communities and our democracy from the bottom up—against every top-down attack they throw at us. Gov. Hochul should join this struggle and be a leader, not a purveyor of timid half-measures that don’t address the problem.”

###