On Wednesday, the Erie County medical examiner ruled the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam a homicide. The blind, Burmese refugee was left, by Border Patrol agents, outside a closed coffee shop on a cold February night.
The ruling comes amid building pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul to agree to a package of new protections for immigrants that would do more than ban official agreements between local law enforcement and ICE.
The package is being referred to as the “New York For All Act.”
Hochul’s own immigrant protection bills, called “Local Cops, Local Crimes,” prevents local law enforcement from working formally with ICE, but doesn’t prevent informal collaboration.
“Gov. Hochul’s bill that would prohibit formal collusion is a great first step,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York immigration Coalition, told Capital Tonight. “But where we are seeing the vast majority of harm being committed is in the informal instances, like Mr. Shah Alam, as well as other people.”
Awawdeh recalled an instance in which a victim of domestic violence called 911 and local police turned her over to ICE.
“It’s moments like that, Mr. Alam’s case, the Greene County domestic violence case and so many more cases where we are seeing local police colluding, unofficially, with immigration officials to harm New Yorkers,” Awawdeh said.
Awawdeh told Capital Tonight it doesn’t matter to him whether the package of immigration bills passes within the budget or on its own, just that it passes soon.
“We are in an urgent moment,” he said.
In an email to Capital Tonight, the governor’s spokesperson sent the following comment:
“The Governor shares this sense of urgency, which is why she proposed these bills in January and has been clear that she would be willing to sign them into law immediately. The time to act is now.”