Protect NY from Trump’s Fascism

I’m writing to urge you to take immediate action to bolster New Yorkers’ rights and freedoms and insulate our state from Trump’s dangerous agenda.

Donald Trump’s re-election is an unprecedented threat to our rights, liberties, and New York values. He has promised to erode the rights of women, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people, and protesters with even more fervor than he did during his first term. To meet this moment, New York must mount a proactive defense against what is coming. This means taking bold, urgent action to shore up our rights and freedoms before Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.

PROTECT IMMIGRANT NEW YORKERS

Loopholes in New York’s laws have too long allowed immigration authorities to collude with local police and other government actors to gather information, detain, and deport our immigrant neighbors – and Trump is hellbent on making sure this collusion increases under his rule.

Before Trump takes office, the legislature must take action to protect immigrants by passing:
-- The New York For All Act to bring New York in line with states like Washington and California that refuse to use their resources for federal immigration enforcement;
-- The Dignity Not Detention Act to keep local jails from renting out cell space to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for profit;
-- The Access to Representation Act to ensure New Yorkers facing deportation have a lawyer by their side; and
-- The Clemency Justice Act to reduce the chances that criminal convictions create negative immigration consequences.

PROTECT REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM AND LGBTQ RIGHTS

Trump and his allies have made clear that overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning. Their ultimate aim is to eliminate abortion access and erase transgender people from public life by exploiting defunct Victorian-era laws, eviscerating federal funding for reproductive and gender affirming health care, and weaponizing federal law enforcement and surveillance against those who provide, seek, receive, and support reproductive and gender-affirming care.

To combat this, New York must adequately fund abortion care in our state and increase privacy protections for our health information to ensure our health decisions are not used against us. Lawmakers must pass legislation that:
-- Gives New Yorkers control over our commercial health data;
-- Gives New Yorkers control over electronic health records; and
-- Protects health care providers who offer gender-affirming or reproductive health care from federal investigation and prosecution.

PROTECT PRIVACY AND GUARD AGAINST SURVEILLANCE

Project 2025—created by former Trump officials and expected to serve as a blueprint for the incoming administration—outlines chilling plans to expand the use of unchecked and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, and pushes for further data collection and information sharing through government entities and private data brokers to advance Trump’s draconian law enforcement and deportation agendas.

Lawmakers must protect our privacy and civil liberties to catch up with 21st century technologies by:
-- Passing the Digital Fairness Act to protect our personal information and ensure algorithms do not undermine anti-discrimination laws;
-- Creating safeguards for Digital IDs; ban biometric surveillance;
-- Limiting law enforcement technologies such as license plate readers and drones; pass the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to update our warrant protections to be in line with newer technology; and
-- Prohibiting the use of reverse location and keyword search warrants.

PROTECT PROTEST

Trump’s hostility toward peaceful political protesters—at least those who don’t align with him—is hardly a secret. He has called for peaceful political protesters to be imprisoned and beaten, and reportedly implored the military to use force against them.

New York lawmakers must take action to codify basic First Amendment guarantees by:
-- Advancing measures to eliminate law enforcement access to military weapons and armored vehicles;
-- Restricting police use of drones;
-- Restricting the use of chemical weapons; and
-- Restricting the use of acoustic weapons and crowd-control munitions.

There is no time to waste – I urge you to do everything in your power to pass these measures to safeguard our state from Trump’s draconian agenda. Our rights depend on lawmakers acting quickly and boldly to shore up protections before Trump takes office.