State Senator urges emergency vote to stop federalized guard invasions
Where is the urgency on the part of State Democrats to help protect our Latino brothers and sisters from ICE? At least one State Senator has had enough and is calling for an emergency session.
(Photo Courtesy of our friends at Indivisible Rockland)
Just a quick note to Monroe Gazette readers: We have a big post coming about the alleged mismanagement of the Town of Monroe and Town of Woodbury budgets by the outgoing supervisors of both towns. How the Town of Monroe’s outgoing majority (Sal Scancarello, Dorey Houle and Tony Cardone) votes this evening, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. is a big part of that story.
While we wait, here is another transcript from The Finley, which you can listen to where all good podcasts are found, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
This transcript got a bit lost in the shuffle because it was part of the same episode in which I covered the South Blooming Grove illegal-election timeline, which you can listen to here. I wanted to make sure you all saw it because it touches on several bills of utmost importance to our region. The first is the New York For All Act, which would make New York State’s cooperation with ICE—or preferably its lack thereof—consistent across all counties. The Dignity Not Detention Act came up in a previous episode involving the Legal Aid Society and the treatment of ICE detainees at Orange County Jail. And the still-unnamed bill proposed by State Sen. Andrew Gounardes would help limit, but not outright prevent, the deployment of out‑of‑state National Guard units to New York City and other locations throughout the state, such as Buffalo.
Remember: There’s no such thing as a “red state.” There are states occupied by the Trump regime where people cannot vote freely and unencumbered because of gerrymandering, voter suppression and other tactics, and states where people can mostly vote freely and unencumbered. “Red states” are occupied states.
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Now let’s get to the interview with State Senator Andrew Gounardes …
Interview With State Senator Andrew Gounardes
(Reader note: This transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.)
BJ Mendelson, host of The Finley: Before we get into the new bill that was just announced, we are very big fans of the New York For All Act. Just at a high level for people that are going to listen and read this interview, I was hoping you could talk to us about the origination of the bill and where it came from. And then I can give you context of what’s happening here in Orange County.
New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes: Sure. It’s actually a bill that I picked up from a fellow colleague, State Senator Julia Salazar, who originally sponsored the bill.
What the bill (New York For All) is trying to do is establish a consistent and comprehensive statewide approach to how and when local governments can and cannot partner and collude with ICE for the purposes of immigration enforcement.
Right now, we have a very scattered policy where New York City prohibits coordination. Westchester County prohibits coordination. The State Police are prohibited from coordination by an executive order. But many other county governments and local governments and town governments and cities have policies to the contrary.
What that means functionally is that someone who can rely on the protection of a law like New York For All—let’s say, for example, in New York City—should they be stopped by someone in Orange County, or in Rockland or in Rensselaer, or Nassau counties, they don’t enjoy that same protection.
It’s really a matter of public safety, in my view. You want immigrants to feel comfortable enough to trust their local law enforcement; that they can trust their local government institutions, whether that be a police precinct, a public school, a child welfare services agency, or a public hospital. You want immigrants not to have to live in the shadows under the fear that should they enter into a public building, they run the risk of being detained and possibly deported when they’ve done nothing wrong.
That’s the purpose of the bill and why I’ve agreed to sponsor it for the last couple of years.
Mendelson: Here in Orange County, we have an issue where OCJ (Orange County Jail) has had a long history of working with ICE under the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
We have a lot of residents who are deeply concerned about this ongoing relationship.
Orange County’s Sheriff’s Department, speaking as a reporter, they’re not responsive to FOILs on the matter. Sometimes they’ll just straight-up lie to you when you ask them questions about their relationship with ICE.
On a very specific level, could you highlight how this bill would help remedy that situation for people concerned about ICE’s relationship here in Orange County?
Sen. Gounardes: The bill, as it would apply to Orange County, would prohibit any local government from coordinating with ICE to carry out immigration enforcement. That means ICE could not issue a detainer request to a local police precinct or to a local government agency and say, “We want you to arrest so-and-so because we want to take them and then put them in for possible deportation proceedings,” unless there is a signed judicial warrant.
In that case, we would allow that coordination to continue because an Article III judge has determined there is probable cause to arrest this individual for a crime.
As it relates to the county jail, there’s a complementary bill still sponsored by Senator Salazar called Dignity Not Detention, which would prohibit agreements between local penal institutions like the Orange County Jail and ICE for the purpose of detaining immigrants for immigration enforcement.
The two pieces of legislation work in tandem: one addresses pre-detainment, pre-arrest; the other addresses post-arrest. I view both as equally important at this moment, when not only immigrants are being rounded up, but American citizens are being arrested and detained and having their due process rights violated in some cases by their own local government conspiring with ICE.
Mendelson: ProPublica reported there were over 170 U.S. citizens, that we know of, who have been arrested and detained by ICE.
I feel like there are a lot of bills that are great, but sometimes it feels like there isn’t a sense of urgency to bring them to the floor right now with an emergency session of the legislature.
Are you supportive of that method? Why wait until January—let’s vote on this right now.
Sen. Gounardes: I have called for us to pass New York For All as soon as possible. I think it is incredibly important that we make it harder for ICE to do their job and that we in no way allow the institutions of New York government to have any type of connection with Trump’s deportation dragnet. I would absolutely favor trying to pass it at the earliest possible moment.
Mendelson: You have a new bill. This hit close to home for me as a former Chicago resident, seeing the Texas National Guard come in and around the city. I don’t believe the bill has a name yet, but could you tell us a little about what it will do as it relates to National Guard troops being deployed here in New York from outside states?
Sen. Gounardes: There are a few ways the National Guard can be deployed. They can be deployed by the state internally for emergency response or disaster relief. They can be deployed by states to go to other states for deployment. Or they can be federalized by the national government by the president, in which case they are treated as part of the military.
This bill seeks to make it so no state could, on its own volition, decide to send its National Guard into New York at the behest of the federal government— in this case the Trump administration—without the explicit consent of our own governor.
That’s important because already 15 states have deployed their National Guards across the country to aid in ICE enforcement, and 26 Republican governors have said they are willing to make their National Guard available to assist in federal law enforcement. This bill is meant to protect us and our civil liberties from those states that might try to, for appearances or demonstration of force, literally invade New York with their National Guard for no good reason other than to make a point.
Mendelson: I’m trying to figure out what mechanism is missing that this bill remedies. Doesn’t the governor have purview over the National Guard? Could you clarify what’s absent now that this bill would address?
Sen. Gounardes: The National Guard can be activated in several ways. The National Guard is created under federal law, and every state has a National Guard contingent that is subject to the direct control of the governor of that state under federal law.
The National Guard can be activated by the governor at any time for any purpose, but can also be federalized by the federal government, in which case the president, as commander in chief, takes command of those troops and deploys them as he or she sees fit. We cannot stop the federal government from federalizing any National Guard unit—federal law preempts states there.
That’s what we’re seeing in places like Chicago and Portland, where President Trump has federalized elements of the National Guard from Illinois and Oregon, as well as from other states like Texas and California. Those deployments are being challenged, not on the fact that the president federalized the troops, but on the purposes for which the president is trying to use those federal troops.
Our bill addresses a different circumstance: one in which a Republican governor, at the behest of the president, says, “I’m going to send a thousand troops of the Texas National Guard into New York City because President Trump asked us to,” and tries to deploy them on the streets of New York City without the president federalizing those units. This is meant to get around what has already happened in places like Washington, D.C., where four Republican-led states sent their National Guards into D.C. at the president’s request.
We do not need the National Guard of other states being deployed here in New York. This law would give us the opportunity to sue those states should they take action contrary to our express wishes—to literally invade our state. We can’t stop any and all deployments of the National Guard, but we can stop some. That’s what this bill is trying to achieve. It has never been litigated whether a state can send its National Guard into another state at the request of the federal government. Thirteen states have expressly passed laws similar to what I’m proposing here to protect themselves from that potential eventuality.
It’s not far-fetched to think Republican-led states might want to make a show of making New York a target. Just like Governors Abbott and DeSantis bused and flew migrants into New York for political theatrics, you can see them trying to do the same thing to paint a target on New York’s back. That’s what we’re trying to stop.
Mendelson: My last question: What can people listening do to get an emergency session going? January feels like forever. What can residents of Orange and Rockland counties do to help push and get these bills passed?
Sen. Gounardes: Call your legislators—call your Assembly members, call your state senators—and ask them to support this bill. Also call the governor’s office and say we need to take action now to protect New Yorkers from Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and illegal invasion by National Guard units for domestic military use.