We are ready to fight Trump

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

New Yorkers are right to be worried and angry. But we are also determined to control our future and our freedoms, regardless of what may come from the fascist side.

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

The NYCLU helped roll back his Muslim ban and attempt to manipulate the census, rescued immigrant children captured in the middle of the night and held thousands of miles away, ended indefinite ICE detention in New York, and helped hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to speak up, know their rights and act. We resisted Trump’s movement by updating New York’s inadequate abortion laws, enacting long-overdue reforms to the criminal justice system, enforcing the most progressive state voting rights law in the country, enacting new federal protections for LGBTQ New Yorkers, and more.

On Inauguration Day, the NYCLU is prepared, but our leaders must be too. This time, Trump and his supporters will be more targeted, more strategic, and more 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, intelligent and comprehensive defense against what is to come. And they must do so immediately. We need protections before Trump takes office on January 20th.

Trump poses a particularly 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 promised to arrest immigrants, significantly expand immigrant detention centers, and implement the largest mass deportation program in our country’s history. State and local authorities will be a centerpiece of Trump’s deportation plan.

Lawmakers should pass the New York for All Act, which would bring New York into line with states like Illinois, Washington and California that refuse to devote their resources to federal immigration enforcement. Lawmakers must also pass the Dignity Not Detention Act to prevent local prisons from renting cell space for profit to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Protecting reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights

A Trump presidency poses an existential threat to reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. Trump and his allies have made this upheaval clear Roe v. Wade was just the beginning – its ultimate goal is to eliminate access to abortion across the country and ban transgender people from public life.

Lawmakers must ensure that we adequately fund New York’s abortion care delivery system. They must also improve privacy protections for health information – including electronic health records and commercial health information – so that this information is not used against us.

And to ensure 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 who provide, seek, or facilitate this care.

Protecting our privacy

Project 2025 outlines chilling plans to expand the use of uncontrolled and new technologies, including artificial intelligence. All of our privacy and civil liberties remain at risk until lawmakers pass the necessary protections to keep pace 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 with whom he disagrees is well known. He has called for her detention, suggested beating her and reportedly begged the military to use force against her. Lawmakers can help protect protesters by denying law enforcement access to military weapons and armored vehicles and limiting police use of drones that officers use to spy on protesters.

We will be pushing state leaders to implement all of these measures and more in the coming days, and we need your help to do so.

The NYCLU is preparing for the fight ahead. We will see the Trump administration in court, we will continue to protect and promote our freedoms in parliament and on the streets, and we will expand our movement for democracy and inclusion.

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