New York for All: Stopping Collusion Between ICE and Local Police
For years, IDP has documented the many ways that ICE leans on local law enforcement and state agencies to search for, arrest, and deport immigrant New Yorkers. This week, we launched a campaign with the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York Immigration Coalition to pass the New York for All Act—a bill that would finally prohibit local police and state agencies from working with ICE. When local agencies conspire with ICE, it magnifies the injustices of the racially biased criminal-legal system and discriminatory policing. This entanglement also jeopardizes the safety of our communities—forcing immigrant New Yorkers to live with the daily anxiety that a routine traffic stop or a trip to the hospital could lead to being torn away from family.
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Learn more about The New York for All Act (S3076/A2328) here.
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New Way Forward: Rooting Racism out of Immigration Laws
 With immigration reform finally on the horizon, IDP is fighting for transformative change that is rooted in compassion and respect for everyone’s rights. Just a week after the inauguration, IDP played a key role in the reintroduction of the New Way Forward Act in Congress. This crucial piece of legislation would help dismantle the prison-to-deportation pipeline, repealing notorious anti-immigrant laws that have fueled the criminalization, detention, and deportation of immigrants for decades. On a livestream to reintroduce New Way Forward, we were joined by a trio of progressive legislators—Reps Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)—as well as advocates, community members, and directly impacted people across the country. Already, this legislation is backed by 39 members of congress.
 Critically, New Way Forward Act would roll back core provisions of the 1996 laws, which have fueled the mass detention and deportation of Black and brown immigrants, as well as a law passed by a white supremacist Senator in 1929, which criminalizes people who cross the border. Key provisions include restricting the type of criminal system contacts that trigger deportation, ending mandatory detention and for-profit detention, ending local entanglement with ICE, providing people who have been deported the opportunity to apply to come home, and restoring some due process protections in immigration courts.
New Way Forward is already having a positive impact on immigration discussions in Washington DC and has been covered by several news outlets, including NBC News, the Huffington Post, Injustice Watch, and others.
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Support The #NewWayForward Act, by joining the conversation on social media.
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Ban the Scan: Outlaw Facial Recognition in New York
On January 26, IDP joined Amnesty International and other partners across the globe to launch the "Ban the Scan" campaign, calling on New York City and the State to outlaw government use of facial recognition technology. Increasingly used by ICE and local police like the NYPD, facial recognition technology relies on databases that amass millions of images from social media. Because BIPOC communities are at particular risk of being misidentified, the technology threatens to amplify already racist policing practices. It’s also been used to conduct mass surveillance on protesters, including during last summer’s uprisings.
 Together with other advocates, IDP is pushing the New York Senate to pass Senate Bill S79, which would ban the use of facial recognition software. IDP's Senior Policy Associate, Jose Chapa, spoke at the Ban the Scan press conference highlighting that ICE is increasingly investing in surveillance technology like facial recognition software to target and deport immigrants. The ban the scan campaign is part of IDP's new Project on Surveillance, Tech and Immigration Policing, which monitors how the government and big tech collude to identify, track and surveil immigrants.
For videos and graphic resources (like the image above), as well as a toolkit on how to protect your phone at protests, visit the Ban the Scan campaign website.
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Call on New York City and State to ban the use of facial recognition by signing our petition here.
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2021 Edition of IDP's New York Quick Reference Chart, now available for purchase!
The 2021 edition of IDP's widely-used New York Quick Reference Chart is now available for purchase! This resource is a critical tool for attorneys to assess the impact New York state convictions can have on immigrants. This edition reflects changes in law impacting a wide range of New York offenses including assault, controlled substances, firearms offenses, and larceny. IDP has also expanded coverage to analysis of fraud offenses not previously included.
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Purchase the 2021 Edition of the New York Quick Reference Chart through IDP’s website.
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