Prohibits certain immigration and customs enforcement agents or officers from holding employment as a state employee, an employee of a political subdivision, a law enforcement officer, or a teacher; defines terms.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
10774
IN ASSEMBLY
April 1, 2026
___________
Introduced by M. of A. RAMOS -- read once and referred to the Committee
on Governmental Employees
AN ACT prohibiting the employment of certain United States immigration
and customs enforcement agents or officers in certain state and local
positions
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The Legislature finds and declares that:
2 a. Beginning in 2025, immigration and customs enforcement agents and
3 officers have threatened and intimated United States citizens and
4 noncitizens alike, through untargeted arrests and brutality based on
5 nothing more than a person's racial appearance, language spoken, means
6 of earning a living, or exercise of first amendment-protected
7 expression.
8 b. Beginning in 2025, the United States Department of Homeland Securi-
9 ty has recruited agents and officers to immigration and customs enforce-
10 ment with the promise of being unrestrained in the manner in which they
11 can engage with civilians or by the laws of the United States or any
12 State.
13 c. The current operations of immigration and customs enforcement
14 demonstrate an immorality that New York cannot afford to have in its
15 ranks of police officers, peace officers and teachers, whose duties
16 include interacting with the public.
17 d. Ensuring that public employees, particularly those who interact
18 with the public in unsupervised roles, are of sound mind and not likely
19 to engage in racial profiling or brutalization is a matter of statewide
20 concern.
21 § 2. a. Notwithstanding any law, rule, or regulation to the contrary,
22 persons employed by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforce-
23 ment as an immigration and customs enforcement agent or officer at any
24 time and in any capacity between September 1, 2025, and January 20,
25 2029, shall be disqualified from holding employment, whether with or
26 without compensation, as a state employee, an employee of a political
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD15042-01-6
A. 10774 2
1 subdivision, a law enforcement officer, or a teacher on or after the
2 effective date this act.
3 b. As used in this section:
4 (i) "Immigration and customs enforcement agent or officer" means a
5 person responsible for or who provides direct support in the identifica-
6 tion, arrest, detention, transport, processing, or removal of individ-
7 uals violating federal immigration laws. "Immigration and customs
8 enforcement agent or officer" shall include, but not be limited to,
9 deportation officers and immigration enforcement agents.
10 (ii) "Law enforcement agency" means a state agency or political subdi-
11 vision, or part thereof, determined by the attorney general to have law
12 enforcement responsibilities.
13 (iii) "Law enforcement officer" means any person who is employed as a
14 sworn member of any law enforcement agency, as defined in paragraph (ii)
15 of this subdivision, department, division, or instrumentality who is
16 statutorily empowered to act for the detection, investigation, arrest,
17 conviction, detention, or rehabilitation of persons violating the crimi-
18 nal laws of the state. "Law enforcement officer" shall include, but not
19 be limited to, police officers, as defined in section 1.20 of the crimi-
20 nal procedure law, and peace officers, as defined in section 2.10 of the
21 criminal procedure law.
22 (iv) "Political subdivision" means any county, city, town, village,
23 municipality, special district or school district or other political
24 subdivision of the state or any instrumentality or agency of the poli-
25 tical subdivision.
26 (v) "State agency" means any of the principal departments in the Exec-
27 utive Branch of State government, and any division, board, bureau,
28 office, commission, or other instrumentality within or created by a
29 department, and any independent State authority, commission, instrumen-
30 tality, or agency, including any public institution of higher education.
31 (vi) "Teacher" means any regular teacher, special teacher, including
32 any school librarian or physical training teacher, principal, vice-prin-
33 cipal, supervisor, supervisory principal, director, superintendent, city
34 superintendent, assistant city superintendent, district superintendent
35 and other member of the teaching or professional staff of any class,
36 public school, vocational school, truant reformatory school or parental
37 school, and of any or all classes of schools within the state of New
38 York, including schools on the Indian reservation, conducted under the
39 order and superintendence of and wholly or partly at the expense of the
40 New York state education department or of a duly elected board of educa-
41 tion, board of school directors or board of trustees of the state or of
42 any city or school district thereof. "Teacher," also includes any
43 person employed in the state education department who at the time such
44 person entered such employment, or within one year prior thereto, was a
45 teacher within the foregoing definition, or who was engaged in such
46 department in the performance of duties pertaining to instructional
47 services prior to September first, nineteen hundred eighty-six or who
48 provides instructional services at the New York state school for the
49 blind or the New York state school for the deaf.
50 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
