January 28, 2025
NEW YORK – At Tuesday’s Budget Hearing on Agriculture, farmers and farmworkers spoke to the urgent need to pass the New York for All Act. These testimonies, which included NY State Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball, further revealed the climate of fear that farmers, farmworkers, and their families are facing under ICE’s reign of terror.
New York State is facing a crisis and we echo the Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins’s statements to press yesterday on the urgency for the legislature to “meet the moment” by advancing New York for All as our country bears witness to ICE’s increasing violence in Minneapolis and major American cities. We urge Governor Hochul and Speaker Heastie to follow the leadership of the Senate Majority Leader and commit to end our state’s and localities’ collusion with ICE. New York must no longer be complicit in carrying a mass deportation agenda that is rooted in violence and an abandonment of basic constitutional rights.
New York farmers and farmworkers are the backbone of New York. The longer the Legislature waits to pass New York for All, the more dire consequences it will have for everyone in our state. These consequences are already being felt across NY farms, as New York Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball testifies: “For so many of our farmers, it’s terrifying to have to consider that they’re uncertain about their workforce. It’s frightening for our farmers, but it’s even more frightening for the workers that show up every day and do the work on our farms.” These consequences also stand to impact the state’s food supply, Ball shares: “An unintended consequence is uncertainty about the state’s food supply and the health of livestock. It’s a concern about food safety. It’s a concern about animal health and welfare because these are the people that take care of those operations.”
New York Farm Bureau Member and farm owner, Guillermo Maciel testified on the reality that farmers are having to endure without legislative protections like New York for All: “New York is in a crisis and our farms and communities are suffering the consequences of not having protections like NY for All in place. Federal Agents are: colluding with State troopers at traffic check points to target people on their way to work, dropping their kids off at school, or going to the hospital.”
Andrea Salinas, Organizer with Alianza Agricola submitted written testimony speaking to the dire conditions NY farmworkers are experiencing as collusion between local law enforcement and ICE is used as a weapon to violate their labor rights: “Oftentimes, farm owners will also take advantage of these forms of collusion between law enforcement and ICE by threatening to call police on workers who dare to speak out about workplace abuses, wage theft, or other forms of labor violation, knowing they will be disappeared once handed over into ICE custody. Allowing state and local agencies to be complicit in carrying out Trump’s violent deportation agenda is a direct attack on farmworker families, their safety, and basic human rights.”
Senator Patricia Fahy (D—Albany), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee said, “ICE’s continued reign of terror in our streets across the country underscores one thing; the Constitutional rights afforded to every person on American soil are under attack from this federal government, and farmers and their families are living in fear every day.” New York has an opportunity to meet the moment, protect its immigrant communities, and limit ICE’s overreach here in New York State by passing the New York For All Act this session. We have a responsibility to protect the backbone of New York’s agricultural economy – farmers and farmworkers – from an out of control and increasingly authoritarian Trump Administration that threatens their livelihood, the state’s food supply, and the welfare of all New Yorkers.”
With the ever mounting evidence of ICE blatantly violating due process, disappearing immigrant families, and killing both citizens and non-citizens with impunity, our Legislature must send a clear message: New York will not be in the business of terror, and all New Yorkers regardless of their immigration status deserve safety and dignity. The time to pass New York for All is now.
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About the New York For All Campaign: Immigrant Defense Project, Alianza Agrícola, The Bronx Defenders, the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road NY, the New York Immigration Coalition, Columbia County Sanctuary Movement (CCSM), and Vera Institute of Justice lead New York For All, a coalition of over 100 organizations and elected officials united to pass the New York For All Act. The bill (S2235A Gounardes / A3506A Reyes) will prohibit state and local agencies from colluding with CBP and ICE on civil federal immigration enforcement. All New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, deserve to lead free and safe lives without fear of being disappeared from their communities and ripped apart from their families.