There are so many policies we need to implement to make New York livable for working people again.
But one of the most immediate needs we have in New York right now is to restore the promise inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” To restore that promise, we must get ICE out of our city, get fear out of our communities, and build an immigration system rooted in dignity, safety, and justice.
Immigrants are deeply woven into the fabric of New York’s 7th Congressional District, from Dominicans and Poles to Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Greeks, Bangladeshis, and so many more. No matter where you come from, what you look like, or how you worship, everyone wants a better life for their family. But today, immigrants are being scapegoated, terrorized, and targeted by a federal administration attempting to build a mass deportation regime. And for too long, immigrant communities have been failed by a broken system that Congress, under both parties, has refused to fix.
I believe our government should protect families. Our tax dollars, including the billions undocumented people pay every year, should go toward healthcare, housing, schools, childcare, and transit instead of detention camps, surveillance machines like Palantir, and mass deportation. That is why my immigration plan is grounded in three clear goals: dismantle ICE, investigate its abuses, and rebuild a humane system that gives our neighbors a real pathway to citizenship.
First, I will fight to abolish ICE and end the deportation machine. ICE is a lawless agency that is beyond reform. It has separated families, terrorized communities, violated constitutional rights, and operated with impunity for far too long. Congress cannot keep handing billions of dollars to agencies that profile, jail, detain, and deport our neighbors while claiming there is no money for the basic things New Yorkers need to survive.
To abolish ICE, we must cut ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s bloated enforcement budgets, close detention centers, end private detention contracts, repeal ICE’s arrest authority, and ban the use of administrative warrants that are deceptively used to enter people’s homes. These agencies must be required to obtain real judicial warrants for home entry, restrict surveillance, data-sharing, and facial-recognition systems used for mass immigration enforcement, require visible identification and body cameras during immigration operations, and prohibit family separation and prolonged detention of children.
Second, we need real accountability. The atrocities committed by ICE cannot and should not be forgotten. A democracy cannot heal by burying abuses committed in its name. On Day One in Congress, I will fight for a federal Truth and Accountability Commission to investigate ICE abuses and refer criminal conduct for prosecution where appropriate.
We need a select committee to investigate senior officials, ICE practices, politically motivated arrests, illegal raids, racial profiling, unconstitutional arrests, and the expansion of private detention facilities. We also need a Department of Justice Task Force on Immigration Enforcement Practices to investigate ICE agents who engaged in potentially illegal conduct, and we need state attorneys general and local district attorneys working together to share evidence and coordinate litigation strategy when ICE agents violate federal, state, or local law.
No one is above the law. Not ICE agents. Not U.S. Department of Homeland Security leadership. Not the corporations getting rich off this system. That accountability must extend to Big Tech surveillance firms like Palantir, which have helped build the infrastructure ICE uses to identify, track, detain, and deport immigrants. Congress must subpoena Palantir and other surveillance contractors and force their executives to answer for their role in unconstitutional raids, privacy violations, data-sharing abuses, and AI-powered deportation tools. Corporations should not profit from terrorizing immigrant families.
Third, we must rebuild something humane in ICE’s place. ICE’s abusive tactics exist because our immigration system has failed to provide legal and accessible pathways to citizenship, leaving millions of immigrants in fear and vulnerability. It is long past time to create a fair system that allows our immigrant neighbors to come out of the shadows and thrive.
I will fight for legal pathways to citizenship for all undocumented people, including updating the registry so longtime residents who pass background checks can apply for green cards. The registry date has not been updated since 1986. That is absurd. A successful legalization program must be attainable, affordable, expedient, unifying, and equitable.
We must also restore and strengthen the asylum system. Asylum is a basic principle of this country: welcoming people fleeing persecution, violence, and harm because of their political beliefs, religion, identity, or who they are. I will fight to modernize the asylum system so people can seek relief safely and orderly from multiple locations, not only at the U.S. border, and restore protections for LGBTQIA+ migrants fleeing violence, discrimination, poverty, and criminalization.
This immigration plan also recognizes that immigrant justice is not only about enforcement. It is about whether families can live, work, study, and thrive. We must expand access to affordable healthcare by ending cruel exclusions of immigrants from Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, support Medicare for All, pass the PRO Act to protect immigrant workers from exploitation, end federal funding for police in schools, pass the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, and fight for federal universal rent control, just cause eviction protections, and the right to counsel for renters.
When corporations jack up rents, when hospitals become unaffordable, when wages stay low, when schools are overpoliced, and when politicians use fear to divide us, immigrant families are hit first and hardest. But the truth is, none of us are free when our neighbors are living in fear.
Getting ICE out of our city is an immigration policy, a public safety policy, a housing policy, a healthcare policy, and an economic justice policy. When people are afraid to go to work, take their kids to school, go to a hospital, report a crime, or show up to court, our whole city becomes less safe and less free.
We cannot heal this country by terrorizing families. We cannot build trust by disappearing our neighbors. And we cannot call ourselves a democracy while allowing a federal agency to operate above the law. By joining together, we can build a country and a New York that advances freedom, safety, and well-being for all families, no exceptions.