BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — State lawmakers representing Western New York are calling for legislation to prohibit local and state law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities.
State Sen. Jeremy Zellner said Friday he is co-signing the New York for All Act, which would prohibit police, school resource officers and state entities from questioning people about their citizenship or immigration status.
Zellner’s announcement comes after a University at Buffalo student was detained by ICE. Jiaye You, a senior in the University at Buffalo’s BFA program in Art and Technology, is being held in Louisiana by ICE after returning to Queens for a routine immigration hearing weeks before graduation.
Zellner is calling federal enforcement chaotic, heavy-handed and harmful.
“When people are afraid to call 911, see a doctor, or send their kids to school, our communities are less safe,” Zellner said. “It protects law and due process. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and have their rights respected.”
“I’ve heard from families across the district who are already stretched thin and worried about their future in trying to make ends meet,” Zellner said. “The last thing they need is a system that makes their communities less safe and more unstable.”
Assemblyman Jon Rivera weighed in, saying the actions committed by the federal government are starting to make the nation feel unrecognizable.
“The federal government is doing things so brutally, so inhumanely, and frankly so un-American, that we’re not even looking like America anymore,” Rivera said. “I mean, we really are looking like another country from another time, and truthfully, it’s eroding the way that people feel about this country and other parts of the world too.”
The bill was initially introduced by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes in New York City.
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Gabriella Baiano has been a digital producer with WIVB since November 2025. View more of her work here.