In the News

U.S. House Democrats are looking for answers after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up at a Queens courthouse to arrest a woman believed to be a victim of human trafficking last month.

The ICE agents made three arrests outside the Queens Criminal Courthouse and had also planned to cuff a woman from China who was being tried for sex work in a human trafficking court. At the time, she was protected by lawyers from Legal Aid who asked the judge hold her on bail to allow her to leave the courthouse.

Congressional Democrats from New York City are calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to keep its officers away from courts that help victims of human trafficking. Their letter to the agency cites an incident last month in which deportation officers showed up at one such court in Queens looking for a woman who had been arrested for prostitution.

New Yorkers staunchly opposed to President Donald Trump's proposed slashes to aid that keeps millions in their homes took their outrage Wednesday to the nation's capital.

People from the city and around the country made their way to Washington, D.C., for a tenants march against the proposed budget cuts to federal housing programs.

Hundreds packed the Church of the Reformation, near the Capitol, for a standing-room-only rally before the Tenant March on Washington.

WASHINGTON – President Obama should pardon Green Card holders convicted of minor crimes en masse to shield them from deportation under President-elect Donald Trump, according to two New York Dems.

Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-Brooklyn) and Rep. José E. Serrano (D-Bronx) are leading an effort to urge Obama to deliver relief in his final days in office to an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 residents.

Mayor de Blasio is sending the Obama administration a $35 million bill for the cost of securing Trump Tower from the time President-elect Donald Trump won the race through Jan. 20 — an average of over $400,000 a day, officials said on Monday.

De Blasio, in a press conference with Police Commissioner James O'Neill, said that he is sending a letter to President Obama laying out the costs.

He also said he called Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to talk about security reimbursement costs after Trump takes office.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens) introduced the National Hate Crimes Hotline Act of 2016 last Wednesday in response to an increase in hate crimes throughout the country.

With this bill, the U.S. attorney general would oversee a toll-free national hotline to which hate crimes could be more centrally reported. There would also be a secure internet site where citizens can report bias incidents.

With synthetic marijuana a growing concern in New York City, Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) wants Congress to move on legislation making it easier for the government to crack down on its sale.

After a summer scare where more than 130 New Yorkers were treated for overdoses of the drug in less than a month, Velazquez wants the federal government to do more research into the drug, and spend more money to warn people of its dangers.

A well-intentioned Obama administration move to combat segregation of the poor is a recipe for disaster in New York City, a growing chorus of critics says.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to change the way it doles out housing vouchers to low-income tenants.

The idea is to break up concentrations of poverty in New York City and 30 other metro areas by paying less to subsidize apartments in high-poverty neighborhoods, and more in upper-income neighborhoods.