New York is creating a team of legal observers who will don purple vests to monitor and record Trump administration immigration enforcement officials as they seek to detain and deport migrants, the state’s attorney general said Tuesday.
The announcement follows weeks of sometimes violent unrest in Minneapolis, where Donald Trump has deployed thousands of armed, masked agents as he tries to deport more migrants than any of his predecessors.
New York attorney Letitia James said the state’s new legal observers will be volunteer employees from her office, trained to observe, without interfering, whether Trump’s immigration enforcement “stays within the bounds of the law”.
“I am proud to defend the constitutional rights of New Yorkers to speak freely, protest peacefully, and go about their lives without fear of unlawful federal action,” James, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We’ve seen in Minnesota how quickly and tragically federal operations can grow without transparency and accountability.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said James put New Yorkers at risk by not working with ICE.
“ICE law enforcement doesn’t need to be in New York territory when we have state and local cooperation,” Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Trump, a Republican, has reserved his most aggressive immigration enforcement push for states governed by his political rivals, particularly California, Illinois and Minnesota. New York is home to one of the largest and busiest DHS field offices, but Trump has not announced any major increases in state enforcement.
He says deportations of many migrants, including some legally admitted to the U.S., are necessary to reduce crime, though his argument is often contradicted by crime data.
In Minneapolis, residents came out in protest, blowing whistles and recording video as immigration agents dressed in military style patrolled the streets. Twice in January, immigration agents shot US citizens who came out to protest or observe: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Minnesota leaders accused the Trump administration of going too far and violating the constitutional rights of migrants and US citizens, including their rights to observe and protest government actions.
In New York, small groups of legal observers are common at street protests, sometimes wearing the bright green hats of the National Lawyers Guild, pointing out when local police are violating rights or laws protecting freedom of speech.
But a formal state-organized effort to deploy legal observers to monitor federal law enforcement appears to be new.
James, an outspoken foe of Trump who successfully sued him and his real estate company for financial fraud, said he would use the information gathered by observers to decide whether to bring legal challenges.