Hochul ‘tabletopping’ strategies to combat ICE

Gov. Kathy Hochul may not have taken a position on legislation meant to expand immigrant protections, but she told reporters on Monday she has “been tabletopping exercises” with state officials to figure out ways of keeping undocumented New Yorkers safe from federal immigration agents. 

Hochul said she has recently met with immigrant advocacy groups and “people that are involved in the protest community” to discuss on-the-ground tactics to keep federal law enforcement from targeting law-abiding immigrants. “We have all these strategies related to schools and churches and getting information out,” Hochul told reporters. “These are the conversations I have been having directly with the leaders of many organizations that I would not customarily see in my office.” She added that she met with several of those groups a few days ago and plans to meet with business leaders in the coming days to discuss the issue.

At a press conference in Harlem, which was primarily focused on federal funding cuts, Rep. Adriano Espaillat joined Hochul and delivered remarks partly focused on protecting immigrant communities from federal enforcement actions. He recently returned from a trip to Chicago with over a dozen other members of Congress to learn about how the city has dealt with the influx of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. “I believe very strongly that they're experimenting their model in smaller cities to see what works for them and what doesn't work,” he said. “But they're coming to New York.”

Espaillat described a “rapid response system” deployed in Chicago to respond to ICE activity. He said that schools have started “slow lockdown protocols” when suspected ICE agents are in the vicinity, as well as virtual classes for students fearful of coming to learn in person. Community members also established “safety corridors” for immigrants to know whether a nearby school or business would provide shelter. “These are the emergency practices that are being implemented in Chicago and other places,” Espaillat said. “And we got to come up with our own, because this will be the showdown, the international showdown.”

Hochul told reporters that she speaks frequently with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker about these and other strategies that officials are using in Chicago. “This is what we’re already working on,” she said. “When I talk about tabletopping exercises, having a war room, these are the exact conversations.” First and foremost, Hochul said, she wants to prevent the mass ICE intervention in New York by getting top business leaders, “friends of Donald Trump” and others to impress on the president the “destabilizing” effects and “chaos” it would cause. “However, we are not naive,” she said of the other strategizing. 

One strategy Hochul hasn’t pursued so far is backing the bills pushed for by many lawmakers to expand protections for undocumented New Yorkers, including the New York for All and Dignity Not Detention Acts. The governor has not yet taken a position on the bills. “Certainly in the next legislative session, we'll be having conversations about how we can best protect people who call New York home,” she said when asked directly about those two pieces of legislation.