{"id":161055,"date":"2026-03-12T02:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161055\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T02:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:52:08","slug":"new-york-buffer-bills-part-of-wider-crackdown-on-leftist-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161055\/","title":{"rendered":"New York \u2018buffer\u2019 bills part of wider crackdown on leftist protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)\u2014independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it.\u00a0Donate<\/a>\u00a0to sustain Prism\u2019s mission and the humans behind it.<\/p>\n

The New York City Council\u2019s freshly minted Committee to Combat Hate held a hearing<\/a> on Feb. 25 to introduce multiple controversial<\/a> pieces of legislation seeking to institute \u201cbuffer zones\u201d around houses of worship and educational institutions in reaction to pro-Palestine protests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two bills, dubbed the \u201cBuffer Act,\u201d initially aspired to apply buffer zones of \u201cup to 100 feet\u201d outside houses of worship and \u201cup to 25 feet\u201d outside educational facilities. Both bills were amended to remove explicit distances after the New York Police Department (NYPD) intervened, rendering both effectively redundant to existing NYPD procedure against blocking entrances and exits, according<\/a> to testimony from NYPD Deputy Commission of Legal Matters Michael Gerber.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gerber told the committee that the NYPD already creates \u201cfrozen zones\u201d\u2014also known as buffer zones\u2014based on NYPD discretion.<\/p>\n

Despite the bills\u2019 adjustments, a coalition of organizations for abortion rights, Palestinian liberation, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and others spoke out against the proposals, which came as lawmakers introduced similar buffer bills on the state level. The groups have vowed to continue organizing<\/a> against legislation they say intends to criminalize protest<\/a> and institute censorship zones<\/a> while employing laws that are meant to protect abortion clinics from harassment from anti-abortion extremists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides actions from city and state lawmakers as well as the governor, protesters are also being targeted by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which has used the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994<\/a>\u2014intended to protect abortion clinics\u2014to crack down on pro-Palestine and other organizers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are trying to put these laws into power \u2026 they\u2019re against pro-Palestine protesters,\u201d said Margot Varrat, an abortion rights activist with New York City for Abortion Rights who testified against the bills at City Hall. Varrat is using a pseudonym out of fear of right-wing retaliation. \u201cSo the people primarily speaking up against it are pro-Palestine groups.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cPeople need to keep in mind that if these laws get passed, whoever\u2019s in power next could be targeting whatever they\u2019re against. It could be LGBTQ+ demonstrations that could get targeted under different admin.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Council Speaker Julie Menin initially claimed that her buffer legislation was intended to protect all New Yorkers, she later admitted during the hearing that a primary motivator behind the bills was a November protest against an Israeli land-sale event held at the Park East Synagogue. Israeli settlement program Nefesh B\u2019Nefesh<\/a> held the event in the closed school portion of the synagogue. During that demonstration, some protesters\u2014who organizers told Prism were not part of their group\u2014were heard chanting in support of Hamas. Later, far-right counterprotesters alleged that the entrance to the synagogue was blocked and that worshippers were prevented from praying. Prism was unable to verify this claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is one of the main reasons we\u2019re here is to address what happened and to fix that so that never happens again,\u201d Menin said during the hearing. \u201cAny suggestion that the bills aren\u2019t needed is just minimizing what the impact has been to the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harmeet Dhillon, DOJ assistant attorney general for civil rights, promised<\/a> to investigate the protest and said on X at the time that the DOJ \u201chas zero tolerance for violence\/obstruction around any American house of worship.\u201d<\/p>\n

State-level crackdown<\/p>\n

The protest outside the Park East Synagogue also sparked jointly introduced<\/a> buffer bills in the New York State Assembly and state Senate. In January, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced intentions to pursue legislation establishing 25-foot buffer zones<\/a> outside of places of worship and health care facilities, citing \u201cvenomous and hate-fueled demonstrations\u201d to protect people who seek \u201cto exercise their right to worship \u2026 in a manner that is safe and free from harassment.\u201d.<\/p>\n

In January, the state Senate introduced the Public Protection and General Government Executive Budget bill for fiscal year 2027, in coordination with Hochul\u2019s legislative agenda, which the NYCLU described as unconstitutional<\/a>. The budget\u2019s initial draft sought <\/a>to restrict protests outside houses of worship and abortion clinics with a buffer zone of 25 feet and defined a \u201chouse of worship\u201d to include the public sidewalk \u201cthat touches such building or structure.\u201d The executive bill from Hochul added language to criminalize the \u201cintent to alarm and annoy.\u201d On March 10, the Senate responded to Hochul\u2019s budget bill by removing<\/a> the explicit 25-foot buffer and all unique portions of Hochul\u2019s legislation, leaving only the obstruction of entrances and exits a misdemeanor\u2014legislation that already exists under FACE Act as a federal felony.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of these proposals are solutions in search of problems,\u201d civil rights lawyer Ron Kuby said in a text message. \u201cThe police already have full authority to maintain access to houses or worship and schools, while permitting demonstrators to be within sound and sight of the thing they are protesting. The proposals make no distinction between houses or worship being used for religious observation, and those being used for a secular purpose such as gun shows, job fairs, or real estate sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jen Goodman, director of rapid response for Hochul\u2019s office, told Prism in an email statement, \u201cThe Governor looks forward to working with the legislature to pass a budget that makes New York safer and more affordable for working families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Micah Lasher and state Sens. Sam Sutton and Liz Krueger, who introduced the state bills, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

To date, no legislation has been introduced prohibiting houses of worship from hosting events that violate international law or that run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, no investigation or legislation has been introduced in response to counterprotesters at the Park East Synagogue who Prism observed carrying signs<\/a> that read \u201cComplete the genocide\u201d and \u201c80,000 wasn\u2019t enough,\u201d a reference to an estimated<\/a> number of people Israel killed in Gaza, as well as an apparent nod to an antisemitic neo-Nazi slogan<\/a> arguing that the Holocaust didn\u2019t kill enough Jews.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Land-sale protests<\/p>\n

While efforts to tamp down anti-apartheid protests are still underway and facing some headwinds in New York, similar legislation has made headway in Democratic-led Los Angeles. In August, LA City Council passed<\/a> legislation instituting 8-foot \u201cbubble zones\u201d around the entrances and exits to hospitals, medical clinics, schools, and places of worship after a 2024 protest against an illegal land sale<\/a> drew a mass of vio<\/a>l<\/a>ent<\/a> counterprotesters. The two sides devolved into numerous brawls, with the pro-Israel crowd later chasing and assaulting demonstrators as police stood by, according to on-the-ground coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Land sale and settler recruitment events are hosted by Israeli real estate agencies and nonprofit groups. The real estate events market \u201cAnglo,\u201d or English-speaking, neighborhoods, with land or planned developments mixed between those in Israeli-controlled territory and Palestinian lands in the process of being ethnically cleansed. The real estate agencies and nonprofits involved, such as Home in Israel, Nefesh B\u2019Nefesh, and Getter Group, gear their marketing<\/a> toward English-speaking U.S. and Canadian Jews to make Aliyah, or emigrate to Israel.<\/p>\n

PAL-Awda, a coalition that advocates for the Palestinian right of return and monitors for land-sale events, goes to great lengths to determine if an event organizer or a specific event sells stolen Palestinian land, according to civil rights attorney and PAL-Awda organizer Leena Widdi.<\/p>\n

Widdi said the hosts of illegal land-sale events exclude access through practices such as requiring proof from a prospective attendee\u2019s rabbi that they support Zionism. These tactics have been investigated for violating anti-discrimination laws<\/a>. Widdi challenged allegations of antisemitism or intimidating houses of worship by pointing out that PAL-Awda calls its protests long before<\/a> the group even knows the location, and has organized protests wherever illegal land-sale events are hosted, whether in a synagogue, a house<\/a>, or at a hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re literally selling land in territory that\u2019s deemed illegal under anyone\u2019s definition of international law,\u201d Widdi said. \u201cThey have cover and an opportunity to completely manipulate the narrative and say, \u2018These people are protesting a synagogue.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal repression<\/p>\n

On the federal level, a law initially intended to protect abortion clinics from extremist violence has quickly become one of the foremost ways\u2014besides deadly violence<\/a>\u2014that the Trump administration is working to stifle protest activity on the left, according to Kuby, the civil rights lawyer, in an interview with Prism.<\/p>\n

When the FACE Act was drafted, lawmakers added a provision for houses of worship in order to get conservative votes to help pass the legislation, Kuby said. That provision, Kuby said, was never acted on until now \u201cfor a variety of reasons that are going to become apparent as it is now being used by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuby is representing Tova Fry, a 76-year-old grandmother and daughter of Hungarian Jews who survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Fry is named as a defendant<\/a> in a lawsuit filed by Trump\u2019s DOJ in September. The suit accuses Fry of violating the FACE Act by serving a notice of impending legal action to a man who planned to host an event at his house allegedly to sell stolen Palestinian land. The DOJ argues that her actions constitute an attempt to intimidate<\/a> a house of worship because the man she served allegedly has a prayer room in his home.<\/p>\n

Since Fry\u2019s indictment in September, the Trump DOJ has indicted journalists<\/a> for documenting a disruption in a church in Minneapolis, opened an investigation into a protest against another illegal land-sale<\/a> event in Brooklyn, and is investigating<\/a> an activist-comedy group for disrupting a public event at a synagogue for Democratic New York Rep. Tom Suozzi wherein the self-identified goofballs offered him<\/a> diapers and kneepads for voting to increase funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trouble with passing new laws as a solution is that eventually they\u2019re going to be used against you, and indeed, that time has come,\u201d Kuby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis law is being weaponized against righteous causes,\u201d said Varrat. She used to think the FACE Act existed only to protect clinics, but she has increasingly become concerned with its additional provisions about houses of worship and the murky definition of \u201chealth care facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically just a law that the government in power can interpret however they want,\u201d Varrat said.<\/p>\n

The fight continues<\/p>\n

While the use of the FACE Act against leftist protest activity has gained prominence, it didn\u2019t start under Donald Trump: The Biden administration\u2019s DOJ indicted and later convicted<\/a> abortion rights activist Gabriella Oropesa for spray-painting<\/a> a number of \u201ccrisis pregnancy centers\u201d\u2013\u2013which pose as abortion clinics to mislead and coerce people seeking abortions into keeping their pregnancies\u2013\u2013in the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s draft leak overturning Roe v. Wade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration wants to completely snuff out dissent and shred our rights to free speech and to protest,\u201d said NYCLU Senior Policy Counsel Justin Harrison in a post<\/a> on the NYCLU website. \u201cNew York politicians should be racing to put out this fire, not adding fuel to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYCLU has indicated intent to challenge buffer bills that move forward in New York, warning<\/a> that such bills \u201cwould broadly prevent First Amendment protected protest, and would increase policing of disfavored communities and messages.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Widdi, meanwhile, said protests will continue so long as violations of international law do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t want to have protests at houses of worship, don\u2019t organize sales of stolen Palestinian land, which are illegal, in houses of worship,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor<\/p>\n

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