Okay.

Ready?

Okay.

Good morning.

Welcome to today's hearing from the Committee on Immigration.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone to silence all electronic devices.

Also, with this point, going forward, no one is to approach the days.

If you would like to sign up for in-person testimony, please see one of the sergeant at arms.

Chair, we're ready to begin.

I am calling this hearing to order.

Good morning, everyone.

I am Councilmember Elsie Angannacion, Deputy Whip of the New York City Council, and Chair of the Committee on Immigration.

Thank you all for joining us today.

Today we will be examining the Executive Order 13 of 2026 report and audit findings and recommendations.

I'd like to thank all of the representatives from the administration, members of the public, and my council colleagues who have joined us here today, including Councilmember Lewis.

New York City has a proud legacy of restricting the use of city time or property to facilitate federal immigration enforcement.

Local laws enacted by the council since 2011 have directed city resources away from the enforcement of xenophobic federal immigration policies and the agencies that weaponize them.

These safeguards ensure that the city does not conduct civil immigration enforcement and that it instead upholds the dignity of all residents of our sanctuary city.

But laws are only as good as their enforcement and implementation.

In late 2025, the city's Department of Investigation released two reports detailing violations of the city's detainer laws by the New York City Department, police department, and the Department of Correction.

Public reporting also revealed that immigration and custom enforcement had entered New York City shelters armed and without judicial warrants at least five times in 2025.

To be a true sanctuary city, our residents must trust that the city will uphold its protective local laws.

That's why I was extremely pleased when on February 6, 2026, the Mamdani administration issued Executive Order 13, protecting New Yorkers from abusive immigration enforcement.

The EO required that the Administration for Children's Services, Department of Correction, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Department of Probation, Department of Social Services, and the New York City Police Department to ensure compliance with all relevant laws, rules, procedures, guidelines, and reporting requirements related to non-local immigration enforcement.

The EO ordered the agencies to immediately conduct a review and audit all internal policies, guidelines, and protocols related to communication, cooperation, and coordination with non-local law enforcement agencies charged with immigration enforcement and submit a report to the mayor within 90 days.

The EO also established an interagency response committee, and moving forward, I will refer to it as the IRC to coordinate and manage policy response across agencies for any crisis in the city of New York.

On May 22nd, the administration released the Executive Order 13 audit, report of audit findings, and recommendations.

Among other findings, the multi-agency order revealed that federal immigration authorities had intensified their targeting of city shelters, sharply increased the issuance of detainer requests to DLC and the NYPD, and employed increasingly aggressive and misleading tactics.

The mayor adopted several agency-specific recommendations to strengthen policies and protocols to respond to the changing landscape of federal immigration enforcement.

The administration stated that in the coming months, the city would implement recommendations from the audit to strengthen protections for immigrant New Yorkers.

The administration also noted that the IRC would issue updated citywide guidance and work closely with agencies to implement these policies and protocol changes.

At this hearing, we will assess the administration's implementation of the recommendations from the audit and ascertain how the administration intends to communicate its process progress to the public.

We will question the mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs about its role on the IRC, the timeline for issuing updated citywide guidance, and the nature of the office's work with agencies to implement the policy and protocol changes.

Although it seeks to examine a report of audit findings and recommendations, this hearing is not merely an academic exercise.

If properly implemented, enforced, and resourced, the recommendations contained in this report would be game-changing for the immigrant residents of our city.

This committee takes our community's trust in government and willingness to access city resources extremely seriously.

And so we understand the high stakes of getting this right.

We are holding this hearing today to ensure that the administration's report is not the end of the work to uphold the safety and well-being of our city's immigrant population, but rather that it signifies the beginning of that work.

Lastly, the Committee on Immigration will hear resolution 626, sponsored by Councilmember Farrell Lewis, calling upon the United States Senate to pass and the president to sign S.4814 to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate Haiti for temporary protective status.

Haiti has experienced a great deal of instability since the 2010 earthquake, including an epidemic, another earthquake, and tropical storm.

Because I know you have a few words on this, so I'll let you kind of get into the actual resolution.

And I am also proud to co-sponsor this resolution, and I thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for introducing it.

I would also like to thank the committee staff for their work on this hearing, including senior legislative counsel Nicole Kata, senior legislative policy analyst Rebecca Barrilla, principal financial analyst Davy Baines, and assistant finance director Florentine Cabor.

Finally, I would like to thank my staff, especially my chief of staff, Stephanie Herrera, and everyone working behind the scenes to make this hearing run smoothly, including our amazing Sergeant at Arms.

I will now turn it over to Councilmember Lewis for brief remarks on her bill.

Thank you, Chair and Canation, for your support of this resolution and for convening today's hearing.

Good to see you, Commissioner Ali.

And I want to thank some of the advocates that are here today, the Haitian American Lawyers Association of New York.

You have President Rodney Pipe here, and Cheryl John from 1199.

I want to begin by saying this plainly.

In August 2024, Richard Pierre Richard was days away from boarding a flight to New York City.

He had just received confirmation that he would be granted temporary protected status, also known as TPS.

Word got out to his community that he was leaving.

And because he refused to join the barbecue gang, they murdered him.

They held his body for ransom.

And when and we have seen Haitian immigrants subjected to electronic monitoring and public humiliation, including the deeply troubling case of Pierre Damas Bell, a young Haitian American, sorry, a young Haitian college student whose family described the profound distress he experienced after being placed on an ankle monitor simply for existing in this country while seeking safety.

These are not criminals, these are not, these are our families, these are workers, these are our neighbors.

There are so many stories like these.

So many families who followed every rule, did everything right, and still paid the highest price imaginable.

This is what TPS termination means in real life.