Since his election, Donald Trump has made clear he will target immigrants as soon as he takes office. As not-for-profits working at the intersection of the immigration, family, and criminal legal systems, we urge the City Council to take urgent action to help to make New York City a place of hope and safety for the more than 8 million people who call it home and ensure New Yorkers can trust local agencies to protect their rights and offer support.
Immigrant New Yorkers in the City’s shelter system will face some of the greatest risk: we’ve seen many examples of how the current shelter system violently targets and criminalizes Black and brown immigrant families. We believe it will get even worse.
We cannot expect immigrant families to trust in our local agencies when they don’t experience our city as safe and welcoming. Without much-needed changes in City law, more families will be pushed further into the shadows by Trump’s anti-immigrant plans. Even though New York City has sanctuary laws on the books that protect immigrant families, there are critical gaps we must address to help keep families safely together.
The current gaps have caused grave harm for people like Jennifer, a newly-arrived asylum seeker who came to New York City after a harrowing journey on foot from Venezuela to escape the threat of political violence there. Jennifer sought support in a shelter, asking for family therapy services to help her and her kids recover from their traumatic experiences. Instead of helping her, shelter staff reported her to the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Jennifer didn’t realize she was under investigation. In fact, ACS never told her what her rights were or the potential consequences stemming from her contact with ACS.
At her next appointment with ICE, which she expected to be a routine check-in as she continued to fight her case in immigration court, ICE unexpectedly detained her. Only later, Jennifer’s attorney from the Center for Family Representation found out it was as a result of ACS sharing information about their investigation with ICE, in clear violation of the agency’s own internal policies and New York City’s resources law, which says no city employees should spend their time or resources on immigration enforcement. She was in ICE detention for a month. Jennifer and her children are still suffering from the trauma of her detention and their family’s separation as she fights to remain in the U.S. and build a life here.
Over-policing of immigrant communities of color means stories like Jennifer’s are all too common. We hear stories from many long-term and newly arrived immigrant New Yorkers about their interactions with agencies, like Kelvin Josue Servita Arocha, who was detained by ICE in a coordinated raid with NYPD, and Javier Castillo Maradiaga, who the Department of Corrections illegally transferred to ICE custody.
While the sanctuary policies in place are supposed to protect families, we’ve witnessed local agencies violate those laws with impunity.
Immigrants contribute so much to our city but as anti-immigrant rhetoric and restrictions have increased nation-wide, and are poised to target millions, we urgently need to protect the legal rights of all New Yorkers.
We are calling on the New York City Council to take urgent action to stop these abusive tactics and to protect immigrant New Yorkers from Trump’s plans to target and separate millions of families, especially some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in our shelter system.
The City Council must pass Intro 214, a bill that would enable immigrant New Yorkers to go to court to seek justice when City agencies violate the laws prohibiting them from conspiring with ICE. Intro 214 will create a vital accountability mechanism that would offer much more protection to immigrant families and a means of recourse if an agency breaks the law.
We also hear from New York families that shelter staff use the threat of contact with ACS as a tool to exert control and power over them and other marginalized people. The intersections of the city’s policing, immigration, and so-called child welfare system (better named the family policing system), exacerbate the racial disparities underlying the three systems and the myriad harms stemming from what the intersecting systems produce: a policing-to-deportation pipeline.
The Council must pass legislation to ensure families know their rights when interacting with ACS. A similar bill is pending in the state legislature.
If immigrant families are afraid to interact with City agencies or ask for help, it puts them at increased risk of violence and exploitation. Our collective safety as New Yorkers increases when everyone, regardless of immigration status, feels safe. The time is now for the City Council to take action to ensure our safety for the next four years and beyond.
Zoe Schonfeld is Litigation Supervisor, Immigration, at the Center for Family Representation.
Yasmine Farhang is Director of Advocacy at the Immigrant Defense Project.
