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Lawmaker urges, votes to rescind Red Scare–era noncitizen registration law
Summary
A lawmaker on the chamber floor said the legislature voted to rescind a Red Scare–era New York law that required noncitizens to register with the governor and property owners to report noncitizen residents within 24 hours, calling repeal a "first step" to protect immigrant neighbors.
A lawmaker on the floor of the New York State Legislature said the chamber voted to rescind a Red Scare–era provision that, the speaker said, required noncitizens to register with the governor within 24 hours and compelled hotel and apartment owners to report any noncitizen resident within the same time frame, with violations punishable by up to a year in jail.
"Sometimes the best law is the one we repeal," the lawmaker said, arguing that the statute was an outdated relic that could be repurposed to harm immigrant communities. The speaker warned that "when we have a federal administration that is using AI to go through old statutes to find new powers, we have to be proactive to take these bad laws off the books."
The lawmaker said they had identified the provision and proposed a bill to rescind it. "I found this law to propose the bill to rescind it, and now today to vote and make it law to rescind this vestige of the Red Scare," the lawmaker said. The transcript records the speaker stating they voted in favor; an official roll-call tally is not recorded in the provided transcript.
The speech included praise for related measures by colleagues. The lawmaker congratulated a colleague "from the West Side Of Manhattan" for what the speaker referred to in the record as the "melt bill," saying that measure would mean "from now on ICE will no longer be masked vigilantes in our streets." The term "melt bill" appears in the transcript as spoken and was not clarified there.
The lawmaker described the repeal as a "first step" and said more work remains to protect immigrant neighbors. The transcript does not include the full text of the bill, the formal citation of the rescinded provision, or an official vote tally; those details were not specified in the provided record.
