Below is the transcript from today’s podcast episode. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
***
BJ Mendelson: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Monroe Gazette podcast with your host, BJ Mendelson.
We interviewed State Senator Andrew Gounardes today about the New York for All Act. There’s a lot of discussion going on about this bill, particularly in the town of Monroe, as you might have seen if you watch the two recent town board meetings.
(Below, at 48:49 from this week’s meeting, you can see the bill being discussed by residents, and then at 1:03:18 you can hear the Town Board’s response as to why they are not moving forward with it.)
BJ: We’ve been trying to get them [The Town of Monroe] to pass a ceremonial — it’s purely ceremonial, it’s not binding in any way, shape, or form — resolution that would encourage State Senator Skoufis and assembly members Eachus and Brabenec who represent Monroe, to endorse and support the New York for All Act. This is one of the things that Skoufis says he supports, but says he supports lots of stuff.
(Skoufis is not a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate. Eachus, Kay, and Brabenec are not co-sponsors in the Assembly.)
Like with any any of these politicians these days, you have to look at what they do and not what they say. So the jury is still out on that one. However, we did speak with Senator Gournardis. I do want to bring the interview to you. I think we had a great discussion. It’s a little brief.
But it will bring you up to speed on the New York for All Act. Before we get to it, I want to let you know that this Saturday, April 25th is not only my birthday, but it is also another hands-off Hudson Valley stand-up event.
So we hope to see you on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the corner of Lake Street and 17M in the town of Monroe.
If you’re concerned about the corporate Democrats dragging their feet on passing New York for All, be there.
If you’re concerned about why Congressman Pat Ryan does not support Medicare for All, be there.
And if you have concerns about the village of Monroe, and there’s a lot to be concerned about with the new Melchiorrie-Mancuso axis, because clearly it looks like former mayor Mancuso is in charge and Alex Melchiorre is just there as a plant for the real estate developers …
If you’re concerned about that, we also would like to see you Saturday, 1 p.m. at the corner of 17M and Lake Street in the village of Monroe.
All that being said, let’s get to today’s interview.
The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues both in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help us keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one.
Our Interview With State Senator Andrew Gounardes
BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette : Would you like to take a moment just to introduce yourself to people who might not be familiar?
State Senator Gounardes: I’m State Senator Andrew Gounardes from Brooklyn, New York.
BJ: And I know that you, we’ve talked before about New York For All, but for people that are just coming into this midstream, could you briefly explain to us what this bill does?
State Senator Gounardes: Absolutely. So, New York for All is a piece of legislation that I sponsor that would prohibit any local or state government agency or any local or state law enforcement agency from colluding and conspiring with ICE for the purposes of immigration enforcement unless there is a signed judicial warrant by a federal judge. And why this is so important is because we’ve seen all across the state an increase in the circumstances and instances where local governments, particularly local law enforcement, are working hand in hand with ICE or CBP, which is Customs and Border Patrol, along many of our northern border communities. And they’re working hand in hand with them to carry out immigration enforcement. And that looks like a lot of different things. It could be that local law enforcement are arresting people on false pretenses, and then turning them over to ICE. It could be that local law enforcement is tipping ICE off to where undocumented immigrants might be, or sharing information about undocumented immigrants, and then kind of facilitating this dragnet of a draconian immigration policy that we’re seeing play out all across the country.
And why this is so important to stop is because A, we just fundamentally believe that New York State resources and New York State personnel and our tax dollars should not be used to facilitate and contribute to this terrible immigration crackdown that is literally tearing families apart, especially because ICE is now one of the most well-funded law enforcement entities in the country. I mean, they have a $75 billion budget. Why do they need our help?
And secondly, and this actually might be more important, it actually doesn’t help increase public safety when you let local governments or local law enforcement work hand in hand with ICE, because all that does is push people into the shadows and it tells them that they should not call local police for help, that they should not trust that when they call 911 for assistance, that they’re actually gonna be taken care of, that they should not go to a local public hospital when they need emergency care. And what could be more destabilizing to the safety of not only an individual, but to a whole community when you can no longer trust your local government? And that’s what we see happening play out all across the state, which is why New York for All is so critically important.
BJ: Absolutely. And just so you can help me clarify a couple of things that popped up in Orange County.
The county executive, when asked about the protest, said that legislation in Albany, such as New York for All, would end that agreement. Is that right? Is that how that works?
State Senator Gounardes: So it would not be the New York for All bill, it would actually be the Dignity Not Detention bill, but the same premise applies. So Dignity Not Detention basically says that local governments cannot enter into contracts with ICE to use their jail facilities for immigration detention. So broadly speaking, he [Neuhaus] is correct. He got the name of the bill wrong, but he’s correct. We’re trying to both of these practices.
BJ: In the town of Monroe, we’ve been trying to get them to pass a purely ceremonial resolution in support of New York for All. And one of the reasons they gave against it was that Hochul apparently has like this watered down version. So I’m just hoping you can clarify what the difference is between the actual New York for All and this watered down weak version that Kathy Hochul is pushing.
State Senator Gounardes: Well, the governor proposed several weeks ago a measure called Local Cops Local Crimes Act, which would basically ban any formal agreement between the local government and ICE.
These are known as 287-G agreements. Now, these types of agreements are where local entities enter into a formal partnership, it’s like a signed contract, about what they will or will not assist ICE with. And there’s different ways that this could take. There could be agreements to house immigrants in local detention facilities.
It can be agreements to share certain types of information. It can be agreements to deputize your local law enforcement to act as ICE agents side by side with ICE, as we’re seeing in Nassau County. So the governor’s proposal is to ban those. And that’s good, and that’s important. And New York For All would also ban those. But we’ve seen so much collusion that is not formalized in a contract, like a 287-G agreement all across the state.
Earlier this year, everyone has made national news, the Rohingya refugee in Buffalo, Nurul Alam who had a legal status to be here, he was a refugee with legal status, was arrested by the Erie County Sheriff on false charges, was held for nearly a year, and then was just simply turned over to Customs and Border Patrol. For whatever they were going to do with him and then five days later he showed up dead on the side of the road. The governor’s proposal would not address those circumstances.
In Port Chester, West Chester County earlier this year, there was a young man driving to church and he was pulled over by the police for having tinted windows. Now, tinted windows, you if you have them, you get a ticket, you get a desk appearance ticket, you gotta show up.
Just like if had a broken tail, you gotta show up, you gotta say, well, I fixed the window, I fixed the tail light, whatever. He was not given a desk appearance ticket. He was brought into the local precinct, he was detained, and then he was transferred to ICE for immigration detention. And last we heard he was in Louisiana trying to fight off his deportation.
That’s the type of collusion that New York for all would prevent that the governor’s proposal would not put a stop to. And then just last week, the governor made another amendment to her proposal and she said, we would not allow local law enforcement to coordinate with ICE unless they had probable cause that an immigrant may have committed a crime.
Now, that to me, and I think to many people, is highly problematic because that is such a subjective standard. And, you know, just last week in Brooklyn in a different circumstance, local police officers went into a bodega to arrest someone that they thought they had probable cause to believe was a drug dealer, they beat the living tar out of him, and they had the wrong guy.
And we know that this story plays out time and time and time time time time again, right? I mean, local police make mistakes. That’s, you know, everyone’s human. But now we’re saying that if local police believe that an immigrant or frankly someone who looks like an immigrant may have committed a crime, we’re just gonna tell ICE.
Without zero protections, without zero due process, without anyone being charged, without anyone being convicted, without any proof whatsoever, that’s highly problematic. And so we’re still trying to hold the line and push to ban all types of collusion because we know that that actually is going to be the thing that keeps people safe and that keeps communities stabilized.
BJ: Absolutely. And it makes me nervous too, because the city of Newburgh just has an awful track record in terms of how it works with the residents of its city and its transparency.
And the Orange County Sheriff also actively stymies FOIL requests concerning ICE and detainees. So when you talk about leaving it to these local police forces to make these decisions, that’s sort of just sounds scary. [At the time of this writing, Orange County Attorney Rick Golden is attempting to hold up a FOIL request placed by The Monroe Gazette concerning Orange County’s communications with ICE involving Orange County Jail. The Monroe Gazette will be submitted a FOIL appeal shortly.]
Why wasn’t this bill passed in early January when everyone came back into session? It just seemed like such a, I mean, it’s a Democrat trifecta in New York state. It just seemed like a slam dunk. What held it up?
State Senator Gounardes: Well, were trying, New York for All is an important piece of a much broader puzzle, much bigger puzzle. And there are many other things that we want to do to protect immigrant New Yorkers that are not covered by New York for All. For example, what happens when schools are involved, when children are removed from schools, when parents are separated from their kids, when someone, an ICE agent shows up at a school and a school staff member doesn’t know how to respond and they let someone in the building inappropriately.
You know, there’s no guidance there. What do we do around other types of sensitive locations? Churches, hospitals, daycare centers, things like that. What legal recourse do people have when their civil rights have been violated by these ICE officers? Are there measures we can put in law to give people access to the courthouse whenever their civil rights have been violated by ICE, as we’ve seen happen across the country? So we had been working to put together a comprehensive immigration package, the centerpiece of which would have been New York for all with a couple of these secondary but equally as important pieces.
And then the governor put out her proposal right after she dropped her, made her executive budget presentation. And then the immigration conversation got folded into the budget debate. And so we’re on this track right now where everything is being negotiated as part of the budget. The budget is nearly a month late and we only have a couple of weeks left before the legislature gavels out of session. And so this might be the only opportunities we have to pass as comprehensive a package of immigration protections as we can get this year.
BJ: Right, and so then we only have time for one more question because I know you have to run, so just just tell us in brief where where are we right now as of this morning this recording and what can people do to help push it over the finish line?
State Senator Gounardes: Well, right now we are still trying to push back against the governor’s proposals and to try to bring her closer to the New York for All side of the spectrum to say that there should be no instances in which local police are actively working with ICE. That local police are not creating fabricated instances of probable cause to turn someone over to ICE, that local police are not taking civil infraction matters and then turning them into criminal investigations to justify sharing information with ICE.
I think that anyone who’s concerned about keeping ICE in check and anyone that is concerned about protecting ⁓ immigrant and non-immigrant neighbors alike need to make sure that they are calling the governor’s office and calling their state legislators, state legislators telling them that this is really important to them and that we should not sacrifice, be willing to sacrifice people’s safety under the guise of trying to do something that’s actually not going to protect people.
BJ: That’s perfect. And for people listening, I can’t stress enough the importance of calling Paula Kay, Chris Eachus and James Skoufis, all of whom, at least in principle, support New York for All. I at least say they do, but some of them have given reasons that they won’t co-sign or sponsor the bill because they’re afraid of their constituents, apparently. So please do get on the phones. Senator Gounardes thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Note to readers:
We have reached out to Assembly Member Kay about her meeting with the Mid-Hudson Valley DSA concerning New York For All. Eric Feinblatt on behalf of the MHVDSA told The Monroe Gazette. We hope to get clarity on what her exact positions are, and how she will vote, on both NY4All and Dignity not Detention. A post on Dignity Not Detention is forthcoming.
“Four representatives of Mid-Hudson Valley DSA traveled to Albany on April 21 to take part in the No Collusion, No Cages Advocacy Day and meet with Assembly Member Paula Kay about two immigration bills moving through the Legislature: New York for All and Dignity Not Detention.
We had scheduled the meeting a week earlier, but were told that Assembly Member Kay would be unavailable all day and that we could instead meet with an administrative assistant. We sent the assistant our talking points and asked that they be shared with Kay in advance, so she could come prepared for a substantive discussion. When we arrived, however, it became clear that the “assistant” was actually an intern who was unfamiliar with both bills and said she could not speak on Kay’s behalf. This was the second time Kay had sent an intern to meet with DSA’s Solidarity Working Group.
Kay then stepped out of her office, asked what the meeting was about, glanced at her schedule on a computer screen, and decided it would be better to join the conversation herself.
Her answers were essentially the same as when I met with her five weeks earlier in Narrowsburg: she said she would support New York for All, though not sponsor it, but, as a former prosecutor, could not support Dignity Not Detention. That position seemed inconsistent and suggested a limited understanding of the legislation. When pressed, she shifted to saying that she had received significant constituency feedback opposing Dignity Not Detention, which raised further questions. Are her constituents really able to distinguish between these two bills so clearly? Is she?
We asked whether, if enough phone calls, emails, and postcards came in support of Dignity Not Detention, she would reconsider. She did not give a direct answer.
We left the meeting with the impression that Assembly Member Kay is making legislative decisions based on which way the political winds are blowing, though it remains unclear what is shaping those winds. Twice now, she has treated DSA’s request for a serious conversation about urgent state and national issues as worthy only of sending an intern.”
State Senator Skoufis refuses to answer any questions submitted to his office by The Monroe Gazette.
Assemblyman Chris Eachus does whatever Senator Skoufis tells him.
If we hear from any of these people, we’ll update this story here and let you know.
