Immigration Raids & Detention

The criminal and immigration legal systems treat immigrant New Yorkers unequally. This is why we advocate for legislative and policy reforms that champion the rights of non-citizen New Yorkers, with a focus on combatting the criminalization of immigrant communities.

After the arrest of a client following a court appearance by ICE in 2014, BDS supported, and urged the passage of, the Protect Our Courts Act (S.425/A.2176).With the passage of this law in 2020, New York took a momentous step to stop ICE agents from surveilling, arresting and terrorizing immigrant New Yorkers at courthouses. Currently, we support an array of proposed legislation on the local and state level, among these are two pieces of legislation pending before the New York State Legislature in Albany: (1) the New York For All Act (S.3076/A.2328), which would prohibit all local law enforcement and state agencies from conspiring with ICE, enforcing federal immigration laws, funneling people into ICE custody, and sharing sensitive information with ICE; and (2) the Dignity Not Detention Act (A.7099A), which would get New York State out of the immigrant detention business, putting an end to the inhumane and unnecessary incarceration of immigrants in New York jails and curtailing ICE enforcement by limiting its space to detain people. We also support legislation pending before our City Council which would strengthen of our New York City Detainer Laws to end continued entanglement of our city agencies with the federal mass-deportation regime.