How We’re Fighting Back Against Trump

The NYCLU is part of the legal team defending Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent graduate student at Columbia University. Mr. Khalil was arrested in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian human rights. We’re representing Mr. Khalil in court alongside the ACLU, CLEAR, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Alina Das of Washington Square Legal Services, Van Der Hout LLP, Amy Greer of Dratel & Lewis, and the ACLU of New Jersey.

We joined the ACLU and ACLU of the District of Columbia to file a lawsuit challenging the president’s attempt to massively – and illegally – expand fast-track deportations without a fair legal process.

The NYCLU joined the ACLU in a federal lawsuit to ensure the Trump administration does not deport people under the Alien Enemies Act – a 1798 wartime act the administration is trying to use to bypass immigration law – without due process.

The NYCLU worked hard last year to win the New York State Equal Rights Amendment, which protects abortion rights and full equality in the state constitution. Now, we’re implementing a statewide strategy to ensure New Yorkers and courts can use it to ward off some of the worst abuses of the Trump administration and build a firewall for freedom.

When Trump was re-elected, we released a state legislative agenda to protect immigrant New Yorkers, reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights, our privacy, and the right to protest. We’re working hard to secure as much of our agenda as we can during this year’s legislative session.

In the midst of Trump’s attacks, the NYCLU organized more than 120 organizations across the state to call out New York lawmakers’ inaction and tell them to step forward, protect our democracy and our communities – and lead.

We took out a full-page ad in the Albany Times Union and urged thousands of supporters like you to join our call for state lawmakers to snap out of it and fight back against Trump.

No one receives, provides, or helps others access health care without leaving a digital trail, and Trump and his anti-abortion allies want to use our data against us. That’s why the NYCLU helped push the New York Health Information Privacy Act through the state legislature. This bill ensures that New Yorkers have control over our intimate health information. You can tell Gov. Hochul to sign it.

The NYCLU joined tens of thousands of other New Yorkers at Hands Off rallies across the state to tell the Trump administration loud and clear: hands off immigrants, trans rights, abortion access, low-income New Yorkers, and too many others.

After ICE agents detained a mother and three children in Sackets Harbor, NY, NYCLU organizers joined members of the community and other advocates at a rally to protest the administration’s attempt to rip the family from their home. The broad and persistent pressure – in a community that voted overwhelmingly for Trump – forced ICE to set the family free.

Just before New York City Mayor Eric Adams gave testimony at a U.S. House hearing on sanctuary cities, the NYCLU, elected officials, and immigrants’ rights advocates rallied at City Hall to champion the city’s well-established sanctuary policies and to demand Mayor Adams defend immigrant New Yorkers from Trump’s mass deportations.

We’re updating and adding to our library of Know Your Rights materials so New Yorkers better understand how to protect themselves.