New York To Deploy Legal Observers From AG James' Office To Monitor Federal Immigration Agents

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

New York is launching a new initiative to monitor immigration enforcement in the state, Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday.

Her announcement comes amid heightened tensions and increasing protests, threats, and violence against federal agents carrying out arrests of illegal aliens. As part of James’s initiative, her office will deploy legal observers to document immigration enforcement in New York.

The attorney general said the Legal Observation Project’s goal is to protect her citizens’ rights.

“As Attorney General, I am proud to protect New Yorkers’ constitutional rights to speak freely, protest peacefully, and go about their lives without fear of unlawful federal action,” she said in the Tuesday news release.

Wearing purple safety vests, James’s staffers will observe enforcement operations where appropriate and document actions by federal agents.

The legal observers will participate on a voluntary basis, the news release said, serving as neutral witnesses and recording information that could be used in future legal actions.

As enforcement against illegal immigrants continues nationwide, the attorney general said the Legal Observation Project aims to ensure operations stay within the bounds of the law.

“We have seen in Minnesota how quickly and tragically federal operations can escalate in the absence of transparency and accountability,” James said, adding her legal observers will begin monitoring in the coming weeks.

The New York Office of Attorney General staffers will not interfere with law enforcement activity, the news release read.

James’s initiative comes a day after Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said federal officers in Minneapolis, where large-scale immigration enforcement has been ongoing for weeks, will now be wearing body cameras.

In recent weeks, federal agents fatally shot two protesters in Minneapolis during altercations: A woman who appeared to ram an officer with her car and a man who was carrying a pistol and two magazines when he approached federal agents. Federal officials have maintained the shootings were tragic but justified.

As funding becomes available, body cameras for federal agents will be widely deployed.

"We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country,” Noem wrote in her announcement on X.

Body cameras are commonly worn among local and state law enforcement, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are not required to wear them.

Although as part of a pilot program that began in 2024, body cameras have been deployed to some ICE officers.

In addition to body cameras being deployed nationwide in the coming weeks for federal officers, James also urged New Yorkers to submit their own videos and documentation of immigration enforcement activities.

Her office said it set up an online portal to which citizens can send their reports.