Speaker 1 (00:19):
Also, before we begin today's program, please join me in welcoming State Senator Kristen Gonzalez. Thank you. Good afternoon. To begin today's program, please welcome Linda Wolfe. Please welcome the CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, Murad Awawdeh. Please welcome the president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, Frankie Miranda. Please welcome New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Please welcome New York City Mayor, Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And please rise and join me welcoming the 57th governor of the great state of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul.
Kathy Hochul (06:45):
We [inaudible 00:06:46] every day. Every day. Every day. All right, all right, all right. Thank you all for joining us for an important announcement and conversation that I'm delighted that all of you could join us for. First of all, I want to acknowledge individuals who joined us here today, Mayor Mamdani. Thank him for... He'll be giving remarks in a couple minutes for his leadership of this city. Attorney General Tish James, a great leader who's going to be spending more time in court as a result of what we're doing here today. Appreciate that. Speaker Julie Mennon, the city council. Speaker Frankie Miranda, the President and CEO of the Hispanic Federation. Murad Awawdeh, the President and CEO of New York Immigration Coalition, and Linda Wolf, the plaintiff in a case against ICE we're going to hear about, and all my elected partners in state government and local government as well.
(07:42)
Just when you think it can't get any worse, the Trump administration has found a brand new way to hurt children, innocent children, cutting off legal services for unaccompanied minors. Now, there was a time when these minors would come literally by themselves across the border from Mexico. That was how it was many years ago. More recently, a lot of these minors are unaccompanied and alone and abandoned because their parents were deported without regard for anything but the wellbeing of these children. That's why they're unaccompanied. Mom and dad were sent back. Now here in New York, this would leave 1,400 children to fend for themselves in immigration court. I don't think many people in this room could fend for themselves in court alone, except for the attorney general.
(08:35)
But think of a child, all ages, going into a courtroom by themselves and having to plead their case. Imagine being that little kid so scared in an unfamiliar country, missing mom and dad, not knowing much English, trying to defend yourself in a courtroom. Any parent knows that is preposterous. It's cruel. It's illegal. And for nearly two decades, our federal government required by law that these children be protected when they cross the border, when they're here. In fact, check the history books. 20 years ago, that bipartisan law was signed by a Republican president, George Bush. Remember that? Yeah, it was a different era, wasn't it? Way back in 2008, and for good reason. And one reason is they knew that these children were endangered. Unaccompanied minors without legal representation were more likely to be trafficked, more likely to be abused, more likely to be sent back in dangerous situations.
(09:44)
This was another policy, when you think about it, that really embodied our American values, who we are, that we don't think it's right for a child to be left alone in a courtroom defending themselves. And now that policy, that statement of our values as Americans and as New Yorkers has just thrown on the trash heap of civility and other longstanding norms. They've just been abandoned. And the result is that we now have children in our midst, children you may see who are now in danger. These cruel, depraved decisions can be a death warrant for our kids whose only sin was being born in poverty or in a country consumed with political violence, and their parents decide they're better off leaving. When we lose sight of our shared responsibility to protect God's children here on Earth as human beings, as parents, we lose part of who we are as a country, as human beings, as I said.
(10:59)
So today I'm taking action. I'm announcing $7.25 million to cover the legal services for roughly 1,400 unaccompanied minors across the state of New York. And going forward, these children will have the legal representation they need. It's not lost on any of us. The Statue of Liberty stands tall in our harbor. For generations, she's had a simple message. Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free. And despite the utter lack of humanity and compassion coming out of Washington, that message still means something here in New York. It means that in this state, we treat all people with dignity and decency regardless of how they got here. We recognize their humanity and honor their rights, especially the little ones. Especially the little ones who've done nothing wrong. They're lost, scared, and been abandoned.
(12:09)
Now, I've heard from a lot of people on the ground about an uptick in targeted ICE enforcement across New York. I know everyone's concerned, very concerned. And I want to reassure you that we are keeping a close eye on it, and that's one of the reasons I'm proud that we signed one of the most comprehensive laws to reign in ICE in the entire country. It prohibits law enforcement agencies from having formal agreements with ICE. That means unless a crime has been committed, ICE cannot use local cops, their jails, their technology, to use local cops for civil immigration enforcement. I want to remind everybody who happens to have these in their counties or their sheriff's departments, that law goes into effect in less than two weeks. You have 13 days. You're on notice. 13 days to formally unwind any agreements that you've had with ICE.
(13:11)
And for any that fail to comply, they will face legal action. Because in New York, I want our police focused on one thing, one thing, keeping people safe, not doing ICE's job. We've also banned ICE from entering sensitive locations. Think about it, hospitals, childcare centers, places of worship, schools, polling places. And also we changed the law, just signed it recently, that says should ICE agents abuse their power, we're going to hold them accountable. Let me give you an example. Many of you saw a horrific video, it went viral, showing an ICE agent pepper spraying. Now the article-
Kathy Hochul (14:00):
An ICE agent, pepper spraying. Now the article said it was a 72-year-old woman. I thought she looked a lot younger than that personally. A lot longer. Spraying her in the eyes, at close range in Inwood. Can you imagine if that was any of you? Was she violent toward them? No. Was she obstructing them from making an arrest? No. Was she armed? No, not unless you count her smartphone. Linda Wolf was simply exercising her constitutional right to protest, and she was viciously attacked, and her eyes were left burning for days. That sickens me as the governor of this state.
(14:48)
It's reprehensible. Linda's here with us today. She'll tell her story in a few moments. What happened to her is exactly why we passed a law giving people the right to sue ICE, because no one has to tolerate this, because ICE agents don't get a chance to trample on your rights with impunity. Because here in New York, power never justifies abuse and no one, no one, is above the law. And you'll hear from our attorney general in just a couple of moments more about our efforts to ensure that ICE is following our laws. But before that, I want to turn it over to my partner in this effort for keeping New Yorkers safe, New York City residents, safe, protecting the rights of individuals, and holding those who abuse it accountable. Let me turn it over to our mayor, Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Zohran Mamdani (15:59):
Good afternoon, everyone.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Good afternoon.
Zohran Mamdani (16:02):
I want to thank Governor Hochul for her leadership in protecting New York's immigrant communities from mounting attacks that threaten their ability to live freely and safely. And I want to commend Attorney General James for her ongoing efforts to combat these injustices with the full force of our state's legal power. I want to acknowledge that we have leaders here, both inside and outside of city and state government. We have our president, the CEO of the Hispanic Federation, Frankie Miranda. We have our President and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, Murad Awawdeh. We have, as the governor said, Ms. Linda Wolf, for her courage of standing up on behalf of her fellow New Yorkers. And we have partners here from across state Senate and assembly, so many different leaders who have made this issue their priority. Our city council speaker, Julie Menin, as well as our Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, Faiza Ali, as well as our Special Advisor, Bitta Mostofi.
(17:02)
We are together today to speak out against a grave injustice. The federal government's refusal to renew its contract with the Acacia Center for Justice and nearly 100 more legal services providers after withholding more than $65 million in payment. As a de facto consequence of this decision, more than 25,000 unaccompanied immigrant children have had their legal representation abruptly ended, leaving them to navigate a broken immigration system alone. And for those currently being held in detention centers, without access to their lawyers, this means that there is no longer anyone tasked with ensuring they are healthy, they are safe, and that they are protected. That is a betrayal of some of the most vulnerable people in our city. And then insult, as the governor said, to the very ideals upon which our nation has been built. Today, as a result of this decision, children who have fled violence, trafficking, war and abuse will walk into courtrooms alone.
(18:17)
Children, and they have been alone before. Many of them had no other option but to travel here by themselves across thousands of miles. When they made it here to our city, they thought that maybe the worst would be behind them, that things would be different. But now they will stand alone again as they face attacks from a trained government attorney across the aisle whose sole objective is to deport them back to the place they endured so much to escape. Some of these children are teenagers. Some are 10 years old. Some are five years old. Some are even younger. Many do not yet even speak the language in which they are to defend themselves. And even if they do, these are children that we are speaking about. They do not know how to navigate a courtroom. They do not know how to fill out an asylum application.
(19:13)
They do not know how to ask for relief. They do not know how to gather evidence or to plead their case. And yet the consequences that they will face simply for coming to this country in search of a better life will be immediate and will be severe. Without legal representation, fewer than 1% of immigrant children are granted immigration relief. The federal government will tell you that they have fulfilled this contract with other legal services providers. Yet they have selected firms that lack the credibility and the seriousness to protect these children. Take one organization whose founder and former CEO, a retired ICE agent, resigned due to sexual misconduct allegations. Make no mistake about it. The refusal to renew this contract with providers who specialize in this work is nothing less than a deportation order for children as young as five years old. I know that there are some on the right who may delight in that.
(20:19)
And yet what could be less American than depriving those within our justice system the fundamental right to due process? What is more antithetical to our values than targeting defenseless children? This cruelty is no far away concept. ICE operates here in New York, terrorizing our immigrant families, breaking down their doors, separating children from their parents and casting them into this nightmare with no way out. Many of these children will appear in courthouses right here in our city, and they will do so alone as a result of this federal policy. I am deeply grateful to the governor for her quick and decisive work to close the gap created by the termination of the contract with Acacia. This $7.25 million infusion of funds for legal services providers will make an enormous difference for more than a thousand children in New York who are currently in active removal proceedings, 251 of whom are currently in detention.
(21:24)
Now nothing can undo the cruelty and injustice that these children have already experienced. And nothing can undo the suffering that ICE has visited upon so many others. But we can continue to do everything within our power to protect New Yorkers from being targeted by ICE with impunity and to support all of our immigrant neighbors, especially Haitian and Syrian New Yorkers who have been left all too vulnerable with the revocation of their temporary protected status. Because here in New York, we recognize New Yorkers as exactly that. New Yorkers. In February, I signed an executive order to bolster protections for immigrant New Yorkers in part by mandating a citywide audit of policies and protocols that govern interactions between city agencies and federal immigration authorities. And our enacted city budget allocated $16.9 million for immigration legal services funding for unaccompanied children and increased our overall investment in immigrant legal services by more than $30 million this year.
(22:25)
All of it baseline, bringing our total investment to more than $150 million. We are also supporting TPS recipients in this time of incredible instability. New Yorkers who have questions or would like to be connected with an attorney can get help via our legal immigration support hotline at 1-800-354-0365. You can also call 311 and ask for immigration legal. And we are providing free legal consultations as well as assistance navigating health insurance and other critical resources for affected city employees and their families. In the face of enormous cruelty, New York City and New York State will not sit idly by. We will confront these horrors and this pain with the action and solidarity that it demands. And in doing so, we will show the federal government that we reject the inhumanity of their decisions and their small view of what this nation can be. Once again, I want to say thank you to the governor for this act of leadership.
(23:24)
Thank you to the Attorney General for continuing to utilize every single tool at her disposal for living up to our city and our state's values. And thank you to my partners in government at every single level, be it the council, the assembly, or the state Senate, for you have been fighting for years to ensure that we live up to those values every single day. And I cannot be more proud to stand alongside you as a leader in our city. Thank you very much.
(23:53)
And with that, I have the honor and the privilege of calling on to our stage, Attorney General Tish James.
Letitia James (24:03):
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Protocol has already been established, and I just want to recognize all of the elected officials who are here. I guess let me just tell you a personal story. In 2015 when I was the public advocate, I represented an unaccompanied minor in family court. His name was Kebby. Kebby came to this country without parents. His mother had died, and his father was in Honduras. I represented him in family court because I wanted countless number of attorneys to represent children pro bono. And the best way to demonstrate that commitment is to represent a child yourself. His petition was granted, and his uncle was given custody to Kebby. Kebby has graduated from college. Kebby is married now. Kebby, of course, lives in Brooklyn.
(24:58)
And Kebby is contributing to our economy. And Kebby now has status. But what I remember about family court that day was that there were a number of children in family court. A number of them without attorneys. Some of them so small, when they sat in the courtroom, their feet didn't touch the ground. Some of them had toys in their hands. Some of them looked around in bewilderment. Some of them were alone. Most of them were alone. No parents, no guardians, no lawyers. That cannot happen again. It's up to our state. It's up to our city to move forward and to protect these children and to not sit idly by and allow their rights to be violated or allow them to be in deportation proceedings and return to countries that unfortunately are very violent. We, and particularly I'm glad to see so many of my friends and colleagues here in the state legislature.
(26:04)
We can and must do better. That's why it's an honor and a privilege to, again, congratulate the mayor and the governor of the state of New York for providing these resources because the $150 million that was appropriated by the federal government right now is in question. They initially said that they were going to reappropriate those funds to a law firm in Texas, but that firm declined them. And now there's some reports this morning that those funds are in jeopardy. And so we've got to step forward. In 2015, the city council, under the leadership of then the speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, heard my cry and decided to appropriate funds. And now it's important that all of us do the same. I want to thank the governor for her leadership. I want to thank the mayor for his leadership. I want to thank all of my colleagues here for their leadership and for stepping up and recognizing that no child should be alone in a courtroom and that we have the responsibility and the duty to do something about it.
(27:09)
And that's what we are doing today. I want to thank the governor. I want to thank the mayor. I want to thank my staff for these prepared remarks, but I have to speak from my heart today. And I also want to thank Kebby for saying that he wanted the public advocate to represent him. And because now he's contributing much to our economy, much to our state, much to our nation. We are a nation of immigrants. We are individuals who believe in values, and we believe in doing the right thing. And as a woman of faith, I stepped forward because it was the right thing, and I'm prepared to do it again. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Please welcome to the podium. The CEO of the Hispanic Federation, Frankie Miranda.
Frankie Miranda (27:58):
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Attorney General James, Mayor Mam-
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Thank you, Attorney General James, Mayor Mamdani, and especially Governor Hochul for your dedication and leadership in protecting all New Yorkers, especially the most vulnerable New Yorkers, children. For many, it is unimaginable that right now children are navigating complex immigration systems while detained, living in foster care, shelter, or housed by guardians. For decades, the federal government has recognized that these children, like any other, need a helping hand. Unfortunately, the Trump administration had made the inhumane decision to leave unaccompanied children in the dark by ending longstanding federal funding for legal services. The cruel decision to end this program has purposely disrupted a network of organizations that have the specialized knowledge necessary to serve this uniquely vulnerable population. Whether it be explaining the complexities of legal decisions to children or understanding the trauma that they are facing, legal professionals who work at organizations serving unaccompanied minors understand that these cases are much deeper than what is written on paper.
(29:28)
We are grateful to Governor Hochul for once again demonstrating her commitment to protecting children. And when she says children, she means all children. By investing in New York State organizations that provide high quality, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed legal representation, Governor Hochul is telling all New Yorkers and the nation that we must take concrete actions to protect this extremely vulnerable population. Hispanic Federation is proud to lead a cohort of organizations and professionals whose dedicated purpose is finding legal recourse for these youth to live, thrive, and grow in our great state of New York. We call on all governors across the country to follow Governors Hochul's leadership and fill the void left by these painful, cruel, and inhumane federal funding cuts for services in the respective states. And now it is my pleasure to introduce my partner in this important work, Murad Awawdeh.
Murad Awawdeh (30:44):
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Murad Awawdeh. I'm the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. And first I want to start by thanking the leadership that you see standing on this dais here. Governor Hochul, Mayor Mamdani, Attorney General Tish James, and our entire partners in government who stand behind us, and all of our community partners who are also on stage as well and in the audience. A lot of this work does not happen on its own. This year, we saw historic investments, as you just heard, and a new investment in immigration legal services by the governor for the entire state and by the mayor for New York City. We have so much work to do in this moment to combat Trump's horrific policies that are being waged against our communities.
(31:32)
Just last week, a child showed up to immigration court and the judge told him, "You need to find a lawyer." And the child was like, "How do I do that?" He was like, "It's not up to me. You need to figure it out." And then the child said, "I need help with my asylum application. Can you help me?" A child asking a deportation judge to support them in filling out an asylum application. That is the world we are living in right now. It is beyond horrific that we have to even have these fights in this moment. There are certain values I thought that, as a nation, we all embraced. And apparently the White House has no values that they want to embrace. While they are turning their backs on immigrants who are the economic backbone of this country, the state of New York, the city of New York will continue to stand up and support immigrants. We have seen the horrors over the past several weeks with increased immigration enforcement in our streets where we are seeing ICE operate lawlessly and roguely as we have seen them for the past year and seven months.
(32:38)
This is not new. But what we have been also able to do is, as you'll hear from Linda Wolf shortly, is get the tools we needed from the state. With our immigrant protection package that was passed just this year, thanks to our legislative members who stand behind us and the governor for signing it. Linda now has recourse. Through the New York State Bivens Act, she's able to hold ICE accountable. That was not possible before. And now it is. All of the protections that were passed this year of kicking ICE out of our churches, our schools, our mosques, our synagogues, our healthcare systems, these are things that should not have been even thought of needing to be remedied, but have to be because we have seen people in Albany getting dragged off of a mosque staircase and into a ICE vehicle. We are seeing people being assaulted.
(33:37)
And these protections are not solely for the immigrant New Yorkers. These are for all New Yorkers. All 19 million of us benefit from all of the protections that have moved forward because we see the ways in which this administration continues to operate and we are all the less off for it. But thanks to the governor, our attorney general, our mayor, and our state legislator, we have the tools that we need to fight back. And we are going to continue to do so. I want to thank the governor again and the mayor for their investments this year. They have been critical and key and literally showing up right at the right time. So thank you all for being here. I have the pleasure of introducing someone who you may have seen prior to today, standing up for her neighbors. Someone who has taken immense issue with the ways in which the ICE administration, which is the Trump administration is operating, and stood up for her neighbors in Inwood, New York. I want you to join us and welcoming up to the mic, Linda Wolf.
Linda Wolf (34:55):
Hi. Good afternoon. I wrote a little thing because I'm a little nervous, but I'm Linda Wolf. I'm a born and bred New Yorker. And I'm deeply concerned about the reckless behavior of ICE across the entire nation. And as many of you know, I was recently bear maced by ICE, by an ICE agent in Inwood on a public street in the middle of the afternoon because I had the common sense to speak my mind. I thank you so much for this. And to Mayor Mamdani and Letitia James, thank you so much. Your leadership is, it's going to keep some of us safe, all of us hopefully, and for standing up for ICE. I've been at Delaney Hall since May. And once I came to my city, that was my first day in Inwood. And thank you for reminding us, all of us, of our rights, that we have rights.
(36:15)
And my experience, it felt like I didn't have any rights and I didn't have my First Amendment and I didn't have the Constitution behind me. And now I do. And again, thank you to Mayor Mamdani, Kathy Hochul and James for your leadership keeping us safe. And no one should have to face physical harm like I did just for speaking out how I felt about them. And I was speaking out that day because I care about the safety of the people that are being, my fellow New Yorkers that are being snatched up off the street. And this isn't about me. I'm so grateful to be here and I happen to have stepped into a new law. So the timing is perfect, but it's not about me. It's about the children. It's about the people that are facing harm and danger and no rights. And their human rights are being violated.
(37:23)
And I think that we all can agree about fighting crime and getting criminals off the street, but no one's arguing about that. And this is a different situation. So ICE has crossed the line, putting everyday people at risk. People are terrified in their neighborhoods. And I'm in those neighborhoods handing out whistles and their rights in Creole, in French, whatever. And Governor Hochul, I especially appreciate the law that you just signed this year. Thank you so much. And it's really just common sense to protect our rights because we all have them. And right now they're being violated. So New Yorkers can't turn their backs on this. And I feel that it's time that we support each other and we come together. And it doesn't matter what color you are, we're a community. We're New Yorkers. So thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (38:28):
That concludes our program. We ask our guests to please remain seated. Members of the media, please move to the center of the room where you can be seen.
Kathy Hochul (38:41):
We're starting out, right? Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
All right guys, we are going to take some questions from our friends in the media. If we have press that is along the sides of you, I just ask that you slide across the back here. We're going to keep the questions to ICE, the topic that we're talking about here today. [inaudible 00:38:57]
Speaker 8 (38:59):
[inaudible 00:38:58] Channel 7 back. I want to talk about the RFP the DHS put out earlier this week about the gloves, the taser gloves. They plan to spend 10 to 20 million dollars purchasing gloves where when they arrest people, they will be tased, effectively tased. Your office has obviously a lot to counter their enforcement measures. I just want to get your position on what's going on and if your administration will also be ruling out something against it.
Kathy Hochul (39:32):
I'll comment on that and I'll return it to my attorney in a moment. But that appears to me on its face to be a violation of civil rights to cause that kind of physical harm to an individual regardless of what the offense may be. And I would anticipate that the new protections that we just enacted in the law, just brand new, that says that you cannot trample on someone's constitutional rights and you cannot cause them undue harm and you will be held accountable should be in effect here. Attorney General?
Letitia James (40:11):
We're reviewing the RFP at this point in time, but it appears to be arbitrary and capricious. It appears to be in violation of a number of laws, including our constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act. But we are reviewing right now the RFP.
Speaker 8 (40:24):
Outraged?
Letitia James (40:25):
Of course we are outraged. And in the event that a New Yorker is injured as a result of these gloves, obviously there will be a private right of action as well as action from the state of New York. You can best be assured of that.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
Hi Governor. I'm just wondering if you potentially heard from the president or more from Tom Homan after he leveled some of those threats against New York following the passage of the ICE legislation you guys did earlier this year. And if you've heard any more about his threat to flood New York City with ICE agents.
Kathy Hochul (41:01):
I get threatened by him almost every day of the week, just in the course of being the governor of New York. I spoke with the president yesterday. I specifically talked to him about the loss of temporary protective status for thousands of individuals who've lived here, entered this country with a legal document under our laws, following our laws. And now he's just made them undocumented in the sense overnight with this. So I told him that it's wrong. I said, "It's also going to facilitate a healthcare crisis because thank God these people have stepped into jobs, many of them in healthcare." I said, "Taking care of our most vulnerable." I said, "What's going to happen when Haitians, for example, who work at a home healthcare facility that I walked into and had 200 people tell me that they no longer can work taking care of society's most vulnerable, elderly, people with disabilities-
Kathy Hochul (42:00):
... most vulnerable, elderly, people with disabilities, that the person that they've come to trust with their lives, that a family trust to care for their loved one is no longer showing up. And who are the people who are going to take that place? I said to the president, "Who's taking their place?" So I got a, "We'll get back to you," answer on that one, but yeah, just leave it at that. But I don't take kindly to threats. Just got to just move on to the next day.
Speaker 11 (42:34):
Yeah [inaudible 00:42:34]
Mariela Salgado (42:34):
Governor, Mariela Salgado from Univision. I wonder if anybody would answer to those who oppose legal services for unaccompanied minors on the basis that they believe that this is an incentive to families who are in Central America or Mexico to just send children or teenagers to the United States because they know they will have all the representation needed to get them status.
Kathy Hochul (43:00):
No, I reject that because this law has been in place for 20 years. It was signed by President Bush. So this has been a longstanding policy of our country to say that when a child shows up at our doorsteps, that we at least give them the dignity of having representation in a court of law. That is fundamental to who we are. So I reject that. Also, I do think that the border is, according to the president, closed.
Mariela Salgado (43:26):
But now with the new status if you don't mind me following up, a special juvenile status for those unaccompanied minors [inaudible 00:43:36]
Kathy Hochul (43:37):
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. You want to comment on it?
Letitia James (43:38):
Yeah.
Mariela Salgado (43:38):
The juvenile status?
Letitia James (43:39):
No, it's not new. It's been in place, as I mentioned before. Again, I represented someone in 2015. And prior to that, there were a number of cases where individuals were represented by counsel and they were all unaccompanied minors.
Ali Bauman (43:51):
Hi, Governor. Ali Bauman with CBS. I'm wondering if the legislation that you passed preventing municipalities and police departments from working with ICE, is there a message you're sending to Bruce Blakeman whose police force does communicate with ICE in some ways?
Kathy Hochul (44:11):
My message is I expect him, like everybody else in this state, to follow the laws of New York. And there are consequences if you do not. And again, someone like that will intentionally misrepresent, which is a nice way of saying lie, about what we're actually talking about because we are not disallowing cooperation with local law enforcement when it comes to crimes. We will protect immigrant communities and longstanding New Yorkers against criminals. We always have, always will. So you'll not hear them say that because it doesn't fit into their narrative.
(44:53)
But what I don't think is right is that all the support that I, as a New Yorker, New York governor, with the legislature, provide for law enforcement, $4 billion to keep this state safe, to protect our streets, protect our subway, $4 billion just from our source alone. I don't think that that should be given to local police departments to prosecute individuals, go after people under civil immigration laws when that's ICE's job. That's an $85 billion agency. They have more than enough money. Way too much money. They should not have that much money. But they're going to try and conflate this. I can see it coming. I expect the media to call them out on it. That this is simply saying that our local jails, our policing efforts, as well as our technology should all be fighting local crimes. That's all I want. Local cops, local crimes.
Zohran Mamdani (45:53):
Sorry if I can just add one more thing to that question.
Kathy Hochul (45:55):
Yes, of course.
Zohran Mamdani (46:00):
New Yorkers are horrified by the actions of ICE. These are actions that are ripping apart the very fabric of communities across the city and the state. There are neighborhoods today where you can feel the absence of those who do not feel as if they can leave their homes any longer. And now if New Yorkers want a leader, like the governor that we have, who can look at that cruelty and name it for what it is, then they know that the choice is Governor Hochul. If they want a leader who looks at the cruelty of ICE and sees a playbook of what to deliver at an even greater extent in New York State, then that's Bruce Blakeman. And I know what choice I would make and I know that New Yorkers feel the same. And we are all standing here because we believe in the values and ideals that make us so proud to be New Yorkers. And then there are those who are willing to traffic in fear mongering, even if it means trampling upon those very ideals. And we will not stand for that.
Kathy Hochul (47:01):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 9 (47:07):
[inaudible 00:47:08] I wanted to follow up with the mayor about his conversations with the president about TPS in Haiti. It was actually in Little Haiti yesterday, businesses have seen less people coming in and they feel like the way that you let go of city workers has only pushed them further into the shadows. I wanted to know why you felt like you had to announce that on a Friday and gave very little notice to those people in that community and also on your talks with [inaudible 00:47:34]
Zohran Mamdani (47:35):
Our priority is always the safety of New Yorkers and their ability to also retain their legal status. Now there are a number of Haitian New Yorkers who have TPS or had TPS rather. And we knew that if we were to allow them to continue to be employed by the city of New York, that could jeopardize their ability to retain legal status perhaps through other means. We've seen that before where the federal government will go after those who continue to operate with work authorization beyond the date by which it's permissible and then hold that against the person. Now, some of these New Yorkers may be able to apply for other ways of staying here. We don't ever want to make a political point at the expense of those individuals' ability to stay in this city.
(48:19)
To be honest with you, we waited until the last possible moment because we wanted to ensure that we could provide this employment for as long as it was technically possible. And when I spoke to the president, as the governor spoke to the president, I made very clear that what we are talking about is protected status for those who have been such an integral part of this city. And the point of TPS is to provide relief to those who cannot return to their home country in large part because of the conditions in that country.
(48:53)
Now I will ask you to find anyone in New York City who can point to the conditions in Haiti today and tell me that those are not exactly what TPS was created for. And to look at this city and to look at this state and to say in fact that we want to cast these New Yorkers out, it is something that should be opposed by all of us. I know all of us on the stage oppose it, but the president is the only person who has the ability to extend this TPS or even to defer this enforcement and to bring some certainty back to the lives of these New Yorkers as well as the very economies, families and neighborhoods that have been built around those New Yorkers.
Kathy Hochul (49:29):
Right, you want to...
Speaker 10 (49:31):
I have a follow-up for the mayor on that question. Given a lot of New Yorkers understanding that protecting immigrant communities is so important to you. The state assemblywoman representing Little Haiti spoke out this morning questioning actually the legality of the city firing city workers who were protected under TPS, raising concerns about due process and the district burden falling on the Haitian community. Have you looked into the legal ramifications of the decision last Friday and are there any concerns for your administration?
Zohran Mamdani (50:05):
We made this decision because it is following the legal guidance that we've been given. And again, this is not a decision that we want to make. This is a decision that we deferred until the last possible moment and a decision that we took to ensure that none of these New Yorkers have it held against them, that they were continuing to work after the authorization expired. And we are looking to provide every single one of the dozens of city employees that were affected by this with any assistance that we can. However, we know that these are the constraints that are created by a federal administration that is willing to deport New Yorkers, Americans from across the country back to home countries where the conditions are just as unstable as they were when TPS was originally granted to those very individuals.
(50:53)
And I just want to lay this out one more time. The consequences of the federal policy are life- threatening. I met a Haitian New Yorker on the subway platform in Bed-Stuy who burst into tears telling me about the anxiety that she was living with. This was right before she FaceTimed her husband, who's a middle school principal, so I could meet the whole family. I'm sure many of us on this stage and in this audience have seen a video of a Haitian man collapsing to the floor when he reckons with the fact that he has to leave this country to go back to Haiti. These are horrific decisions that are being made at the federal level. And I'm proud to stand alongside a governor who is willing to put millions of dollars into the investment in the values that make us proud to be New Yorkers.
Kathy Hochul (51:40):
Right.
Speaker 12 (51:40):
Yeah, going back for a couple [inaudible 00:51:43]
Kathy Hochul (51:40):
Right. All right, thank you. Thank you. [inaudible 00:51:47]