We are Ready for the Fight Against Trump

The re-election of Donald Trump is an unprecedented threat to our rights and freedoms, and to our New York values. His movement is rooted in racism, misogyny, bigotry, and domination. He seeks to ban abortion, jail and deport immigrants, separate families, criminalize protest, abolish public education, undermine our right to vote, target trans people and much, much more.

New Yorkers are rightfully worried and angry. But we are also determined to control our futures and our freedoms despite what may come from the fascist-in-chief.

The NYCLU and ACLU are ready for this fight. During the first Trump administration we took on Donald Trump and won.

The NYCLU helped beat back his Muslim Ban and his attempt to rig the Census, rescued immigrant children taken in the dead of night and held thousands of miles away, ended indefinite ICE detention in New York, and helped hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers speak out, know their rights, and take action. We defied Trump’s movement by updating New York’s inadequate abortion law, delivering long-overdue reforms to the criminal system, winning the most progressive state voting rights act in the country, adding new state protections for LGBTQ New Yorkers, and more.

Come Inauguration Day, the NYCLU is prepared, but our state leaders must be too. This time around, Trump and his enablers will be more focused, strategic, and relentless in their efforts to destroy our rights. The policies contained in Project 2025 – created by many former Trump officials – offer some harrowing examples of what is likely on the horizon.

To meet this moment, New York lawmakers must mount a proactive, smart, and comprehensive defense against what is coming. And they must do so immediately. We need protections in place before Trump takes office on January 20.

Trump poses an especially acute threat to immigrant New Yorkers, women’s rights and reproductive freedom, LGBTQ people, protesters, and pretty much anyone who doesn’t want to live in a surveillance state.

Protecting Immigrant New Yorkers

Trump has proudly pledged to arrest immigrants, vastly expand immigration detention centers, and carry out the largest mass deportation program in our nation’s history. State and local authorities will be a centerpiece of Trump’s deportation agenda.

Legislators should pass the New York for All Act which would bring New York in line with states like Illinois, Washington, and California that refuse to use their resources for federal immigration enforcement. The legislature must also pass the Dignity Not Detention Act to keep local jails from renting out cell space to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for profit.

Protecting Reproductive Freedom and LGBTQ Rights

A Trump presidency presents an existential threat to reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. Trump and his allies have made clear that overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning—their ultimate aim is to eliminate access to abortion across the country and erase transgender people from public life.

New York voters recently approved the New York Equal Rights Amendment which writes abortion protections into the State Constitution. This is a critical protection, but lawmakers must ensure we are adequately funding the delivery system for abortion care in New York. They must also increase privacy protections for health information—including electronic health records and commercial health data – so that information isn’t used against us.

And to make sure gender-affirming care remains available in our state, New York must make it harder for the federal government or other states to investigate, prosecute, and punish people for providing, seeking, or facilitating this care.

Protecting Our Privacy

Project 2025 outlines chilling plans to expand the use of unchecked and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. All of our privacy and civil liberties remain at risk until the legislature passes necessary protections to catch up with 21st century technologies. New York must pass the Digital Fairness Act to protect our personal information and lawmakers must also ban biometric surveillance, which is invasive, error-prone and discriminates against people of color.

Protecting Peaceful Protesters

Trump’s hostility toward peaceful political protesters he doesn’t agree with is well known. He’s called for their imprisonment, suggested they be beaten, and reportedly implored the military to use force against them. Legislators can help protect protesters by eliminating law enforcement’s access to military weapons and armored vehicles, and by restricting police use of drones, which officers use to spy on demonstrators.

We will push state leaders to act on all of these measures and more in the coming days, and we will need your help to do it.

The NYCLU is gearing up for the fight ahead. We will see the Trump administration in court, we will continue to protect and advance our freedoms in the legislature and in the streets, and we will grow our movement for democracy and inclusion.

But we need you in this fight. Please consider volunteering with us and make sure to follow our social media channels for opportunities to take action. You can also make a donation. The next Trump Administration presents an enormous challenge. We must face it together.