CITY HALL — CITY COUNCILMEMBERS SUSAN ZHUANG (D-43) and Farah N. Louis mobilized their colleagues on Wednesday for a press conference condemning the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy and tactics, such as expedited removal, courthouse ambush arrests and denial of due process, as being unconstitutional. The rally brought together unlikely allies: members of the City Council and immigrant advocates.
Other participants included Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and representatives from The Legal Aid Society Immigration Law Unit Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, National Domestic Workers Alliance, United Chinese Association of Brooklyn, Haitians United for Progress, Homecrest Community Services, and Better Brooklyn Association.
As an immigrant, Councilmember Zhuang knows the fear immigrants already live with daily, and points out that mass deportations, which she said are well-documented throughout American history, cause economic turmoil.
“America used Chinese immigrants to build the Transcontinental Railroad and then passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, preventing them from entering America and from working. The Bracero Program recruited Mexican immigrant workers and then deported them in masses. The slave trade forced black immigrants into America to run our economy with slave labor, and then America created Jim Crow Laws,” said Zhuang.
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