LDF Strongly Urges Mayor Mamdani to Cease NYPD and other NYC Agencies Facilitating of ICE’s Abuses

LDF sent a letter expressing concern about the NYPD's role in facilitating U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) activities.The myriad failures of NYPD's accountability systems have long been a part of the NYPD court monitorship and have yet to be reformed despite the several years that have passed. NYC's government has an obligation to do more to protect New Yorkers and prevent ICE's abuses in the first place.

Mayor Mamdani has full authority over the NYPD and other city agencies and can dictate whether they can assist in ICE's activities. The administration has not yet exercised that authority. LDF asks that Mayor Mamdani and NYC City government to build on Executive Order 13's protective provisions and take the following immediate actions:

• Direct the NYPD not to interfere with peaceful anti-ICE protest and to stop facilitating ICE operations in any way;
• Direct the NYPD to cease sharing its information with ICE, DHS, and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies;
• Direct all city agencies to report and cease data transfers to DHS and other federal law enforcement, intelligence, and security agencies, and develop transparent and accountable mechanisms to share necessary information with other federal agencies without additional disclosures to or use by federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities; and
• Use your voice to support more durable changes that will outlast your administration, like the codification of these policies into city law through passage of the CURB Act to prevent the NYPD Strategic Response Group (or later groups like it) from responding to First Amendment-protected events, prohibitions against the use of kettling, tear gas, and other types of force on people exercising their First Amendment rights, and the accountability mechanisms in the NYC Trust Act.

###

Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF)is the nation's first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF's archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.