January 29, 2023
NEW YORK– Over thirty immigrant rights organizations today called on the New York City Council and Speaker Adrienne Adams to stand firm in their support of the How Many Stops Act and Ban Solitary bill. Both bills were vetoed by Mayor Adams, showing a blatant disregard for the safety and rights of Black, Latinx, immigrant and all New Yorkers impacted by discriminatory and abusive policing, as well as the torturous practice of solitary confinement.
In a letter, 35 organizations call on the Council to override the vetoes at the stated meeting this Tuesday.
The letter highlights the gravity of the vetoes and the harms caused to immigrants by long-standing practices of our police and jails. For immigrant New Yorkers, encounters with the NYPD can result in triggering ICE detention and deportation, regardless of the outcome of a case, and despite hard-fought sanctuary policies we have in place in our city. For immigrants in city jails, the psychological damage of solitary confinement is often exacerbated by past experiences of trauma as well as previous ICE detention.
View the letter and see the list of 30+ organizational signatories from New York City here.
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The Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) is a New York-based nonprofit that works to secure fairness and justice for immigrants in the racially-biased U.S. criminal and immigration systems. IDP fights to end the current era of unprecedented mass criminalization, detention and deportation through a multi-pronged strategy including advocacy, litigation, legal support, community partnerships, and strategic communications. Visit www.immigrantdefenseproject.org and follow @ImmDefense.