The Monroe Gazette Podcast

B.J. Mendelson
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The audio edition of The Monroe Gazette's long form local news coverage. For paid subscribers only. www.monroegazette.com

  1. Aug 4

    Fee Waivers, Expedited Processing, and Other FOIA Secrets Revealed

    Here’s part two in our series exploring the use of LLMs to generate successful FOIA requests. This time, I am joined by Adam Marshall, director of national litigation at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Adam takes a different position from our previous guest, Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with Freedom of the Press Foundation. You can listen to Part 1 here. This is important information for those of you who want to stay on top of what ICE and DHS is doing in our community given their sharp uptick in activity that started in July. A real hero—pictured above—is documenting the increasing presence of ICE in Monroe and in Kiryas Joel. Full Transcript [Editorial note: I did attempt to use Claude 4.5 Haiku along with Duck.AI to create this week’s transcript. I am desperate to find ways to save time with anything that’s not investigating and writing, and I absolutely hate doing these transcripts. So, let’s see how this goes. Just note that this transcript may be slightly different from the audio version above.] BJ Mendelson: Adam, thank you so much for joining us today. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself to our audience? Adam Marshall: Sure, my name is Adam Marshall. I am the director of national litigation at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. BJ: And can you tell us just a bit more about what the Reporters Committee does? Adam: Yeah, so the Reporters Committee is a nonprofit. We are based partly in DC, but we also have attorneys in states across the U.S. We are primarily a bunch of attorneys that provide pro bono legal services to journalists and newsrooms in the United States. We do a lot of public transparency work—records requests, court access, that type of thing. But we touch on all kinds of issues at the intersection of journalism and law, to try to support reporters and newsrooms as they do their job. BJ: And I think that’s a perfect fit for what we want to talk about today. Our goal at the Monroe Gazette is to train people to report on news within a ten-mile radius of their house. That’s our overarching desire. And sometimes it bumps into this question of large language models and whether they’re effective or useful. So before we get into it, I’m just curious: up until this point, what has been your interaction with large language models when it comes to the work that you do? Adam: I mean, I believe when I first typed anything into ChatGPT—years ago when it first came out—the first thing I ever did was ask it to draft a FOIA request, actually. BJ: Nice. Adam: Because I was like, this could be interesting. I wonder what it will do. So from the very beginning of public access to these chat interfaces for LLMs, I’ve been testing them out and thinking about them—where they could be useful, where they do helpful stuff, where they are not as helpful or maybe even affirmatively unhelpful. So yeah, it’s been several years now that I’ve been tinkering with it and theorizing about the intersection between FOIA and these tools. BJ: Generally speaking, do you think they’re useful for generating a FOIA request? Adam: I’m going to say the lawyerly thing, which is: it depends. BJ: Sure. Yeah. Adam: It completely depends on what model you are using, what instructions you give it, and what you are asking about. I think that in general, if you just ask an LLM—certainly some of the earlier models, but continuing through more recent models—to generate a FOIA request for records about X or Y or Z, it will generally produce something that looks like a FOIA request if you don’t dig into the details too much. But the descriptions of the records in the request are often quite poor. It often misses a lot of key things that requesters should address in the request. And so I’ve been pretty skeptical about just taking the output from LLMs and using it as a FOIA request. Where I do think there is potential is to create custom RAGs—retrieval-augmented generative tools—that look at a corpus of government record descriptors to try to identify potential records to ask for in a records request. I think that’s where the real magic of LLMs can be helpful. Because one of the challenges a requester faces in describing records is that agencies are just often like black boxes. There’s so much that goes on, but it’s so hard for a layperson or even a journalist who’s interested in something to figure out exactly what to ask for. And where I think an LLM can be helpful is translating the kind of underlying semantic content of what you’re interested in into the bureaucratic language that agencies might use. So if I’m interested in, say, a contract at an agency, I might not know how the agency goes about describing those types of contracts or related documents. But if I can use an LLM to examine the agency’s forms and regulations and all kinds of stuff, the LLM might be able to say, this is what you’re interested in. This corresponds to Form 274/D. And that’s really what you should be focused on. And then if I go out and verify that Form 274/D is in fact what I’m interested in, then I think that is a huge benefit to the requester because they can be really precise and the agency then knows exactly what they’re talking about. BJ: Yeah, and I think you kind of hit some of the problems head-on. And so I’m wondering: what would you advise people if they’re given a choice? Would you say that life before LLMs—is it still maybe a matter of having better success using something like FOIA Wiki, for example, which I know you guys are absolutely familiar with and we can definitely talk about? Adam: Yeah. BJ: Would you steer people toward more of those resources than using the LLM? Let’s say you have a new journalist coming to you. Would you steer them toward more of those resources? Adam: I don’t think there’s a huge benefit to using an LLM for the other parts of the request because of a few reasons. One is that the other trappings of the request seem to be pretty standard, right? It’s like, who are you? How much are you willing to pay for this? What is your address? That type of thing. And then there are other parts of the request that require some kind of argument. For example, the requester might argue that they’re entitled to expedited processing or a fee waiver. And in those contexts, I don’t think that the LLMs often do a great job in making a convincing argument. I don’t know. The models are changing all the time and getting better and more sophisticated. So this isn’t to say they’re never going to be helpful. But I think the real value add is in using them to identify very particular types of records that would otherwise be difficult for a requester to know about. BJ: That takes us perfectly into the example we posted where I found that if not for Project Saltbox and if not for feeding that specific Project Saltbox link into the LLM, I don’t think it would have been able to help me identify the records concerning 800 Corporate Boulevard. But I did find that Claude in particular was helpful in, as you pointed out, saying, okay, well this is specifically what you need and what you don’t need. Adam: Yeah. And so I was just looking at the preface to your request. It looks like you used Claude 4.5 Haiku via Duck AI. BJ: Yes. That’s right. Adam: And you know, I’ve also tended to find—to be honest, I have not played around a lot with Haiku. I think in general the bigger parameter models tend to give much better results. So with respect to Claude, I think I’ve only looked at it using Sonnet and Opus. I don’t think I’ve experimented with Haiku. BJ: I don’t want anyone to take this as an endorsement for Anthropic or Claude. Yeah. Adam: No. No. BJ: I certainly don’t. And I’m one of the plaintiffs in the Bartz v. Anthropic case, so I can factually say they stole my stuff to train their model. So our interest in promoting these things is just: how can we arm everyday citizens to act like reporters, and how quickly can we onboard them? And is this better than some of the other things? Can you tell us a little bit about FOIA Wiki and maybe why that would be the more superior thing for people to go to? Adam: Yeah, well, I mean, I certainly like it because it’s a resource that the Reporters Committee hosts and that other groups have contributed to over the years. I’m not saying it’s the best one out there, but it is certainly something that we like to send journalists to when they have questions about FOIA. I think that federal FOIA in particular is not always easy to use. And that’s a shame because these laws exist for the benefit of the public at large. But for better or for worse, we have sixty years now of case law and regulations and implementation of FOIA. And I do think it behooves people to understand how the law works, both as a legal entity and as a practical matter. And to do that, you just have to get your hands dirty a little bit. You have to read agency regulations, understand what are the trade-offs between the scope of your request and how quickly you need it, understand how to make an argument about timeliness or public interest. I do think that flexing your brain muscles around these things helps ultimately produce better requests. And there are a lot of tools that can help us produce better work product, but at the end of the day, I don’t think there are a lot of shortcuts that can be taken. So I think reading about FOIA from a whole variety of sources, including from the government frankly—the DOJ guide to FOIA—to better familiarize yourself with how the law works is always a good idea. BJ: Yeah, and I think a good example of using your brain is—I’m sure you’ve heard by now about ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Adam: Yes. BJ: Yeah, which Wired recently reported on, an incident in Syracuse, among others, where a poll

  2. Jul 17

    Is This The Best Way to FOIA ICE?

    We’re teaching everyone how to use FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act.) If you missed our first attempt to FOIA ICE and the General Services Administration for information concerning 800 Corporate Boulevard in the Town of Newburgh, start here. This conversation picks up from that post. The current deadline for GSA to get back to us, according to them, is 20 business days from July 13th, 2026. So August 7th, 2026 is when we will file up with them if we haven’t heard back. Transcript (Note: The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.) BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette: Lauren, would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself? Lauren Harper, Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with Freedom of the Press Foundation: Of course. My name is Lauren Harper, and I currently serve as the Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy with Freedom of the Press Foundation. Prior to that, I spent over a decade working for a nonprofit based in Washington, DC called the National Security Archive, helping journalists, researchers, and lots of other folks use FOIA to get important documents declassified. BJ Mendelson: For for our younger members of the audience, could you tell us who Daniel Ellisberg was? Lauren Harper: Absolutely. Daniel Ellsberg was the legendary whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers in the early nineteen seventies, and these papers proved that successive presidential administrations, both Democratic and Republican, had been lying to the public and to Congress about the odds of success …American success, in Vietnam. BJ: It’s striking to me. I I had just read The Afghanistan Papers a few years ago and I was struck by history not necessarily repeating, but definitely rhyming there. Lauren: Craig Whitlock’s book relied heavily on FOIA. I actually worked on the Afghanistan documentation project at the archive while he was was working on that and, absolutely, history repeats, rhymes, all that stuff. And FOIA, you know, is it’s an imperfect tool, but it was really important in getting …especially the Special Inspector General on Afghanistan Reconstruction Reports out into the public for for that book. BJ: For people who haven’t read it, I can’t recommend [the book] enough. Especially as a millennial, my entire adulthood was shaped by Afghanistan. Lauren, let’s put aside for a second that the federal government is broken, right? And FOIA probably is not gonna work the way that it would in an ideal situation. That said, what we’re trying to do at The Monroe Gazette is train people to use the chat models like like a Claude or ChatGPT to send in FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests. And that can be fraught with peril. So I sent you what we had created in Claude to send to the GSA concerning 800 Corporate Boulevard in the Town of Newburgh. What worked and what didn’t in that FOIA? Lauren: I’ll just note that FOIA certainly does not work the way it was promised under this administration or really any other. You know, it’s had a lot of longstanding problems that have really snowballed over the decades and years, but I think it’s facing some acute pressure that is unique under this administration. So long standing problems and acute pressures right now make it a really difficult tool. But I don’t want that to discourage people from using FOIA because I think it remains the best avenue any member of the public has in forcing the government to disclose information that the public wants to see. It’s one of the most democratic tools that we have access to. And I think the more people who use it shows the government that one, there’s a demand for actual transparency and there’s a need for this law, which makes it more difficult I think for the government basically to starve FOIA offices across the board. But in terms of the request that you sent me, there are a couple things that that Claude did really well. And I think in general, you know, AI does pretty well when it comes to helping people craft a FOIA request objectively. You know, one of the things that it is best at is identifying what kind of documents an agency possesses. So AI can be really useful. And I think it was in this case for highlighting specific kinds of records that the GSA (General Services Administration) is likely to keep because you know the GSA has different kinds of records and a different record system than any other agency. You know, it’s got a different record system than ICE, different kind of records, etc. It can also be really helpful in identifying specific dates, award numbers, amounts, and these are all keywords that can be used by a FOIA officer when they receive your request to help process it. So I think overall that is what Claude is best at and did best here. But I think that there are a couple of things… It was almost too good. For example, you know, the request is really big. It’s got four parts. And objectively, that’s okay. But when it comes to how an agency actually processes a request, it might be better to split that up into four smaller requests. And I’m happy to talk about some of the other things that you could input into the Claude model to make it a stronger request. BJ: I wanted to briefly touch on how I relied Project Saltbox and their coverage of 800 Corporate Boulevard. They are the ones that initially had discovered this, I guess, secret intended use for the warehouse of possible transportation and holding of people there. And so I relied heavily on feeding that information into Claude, which is what generated the FOIA. In general, would you say it’s best practices to keep these FOIA requests as specific and narrow as possible? And if so, does that lead into… What you mentioned of instead of like one big request, it it should be maybe more specific, more narrow and smaller requests? Lauren: I think in general it’s always been best to file a targeted request as targeted as you can. And I think, you know, while a lot of there were a lot of specifics in the request that that you posted. It really it different sections of it lend itself to an agency coming back with specific exemptions. So if your goal is to, for example, have the simplest processing possible, like if you’re not gonna sue, that’s when it really behooves you to break up some of those requests. So for example, one section most likely to get met with trade secrets exemption, the exemption before. Another one was most likely to see what’s called “the deliberative process exemption.” So if you’re not going to sue, really the best thing to do is to break up that request to a little bit smaller. And that also allows you to preemptively kind of argue against some of the exemptions that might be applied. But I think for the average person perhaps who might be listening when filing your request, the best thing that you can do truly to put yourself on good footing Is not just the content of the stuff that you’re asking for, but make sure that you identify your fee status in the body of the request. I noticed that yours asked for a fee waiver, which honestly is something I’m on the fence about because it’s so rarely granted. [Reader note: At this time the GSA has said our request for a fee waiver is “pending.”] An agency will often come back and deny it. And it just kind of becomes another interaction you have to have with an agency before they process your request. What I’ve found, what a lot of particularly reporters, journalists, whether they’re freelancers or not, researchers at educational institutions and so on, their best bet is to preemptively identify their fee status. For example, that could be news media. And what happens here, because of amendments that were made to FOIA in 2016, this means that when an agency misses their processing deadline of 20 days, which they most certainly will, or an extra 10 days, even if you do get expedited processing, they can’t charge any fees. And so that’s eff effectively the same thing as a fee waiver, but it doesn’t really require a back and forth with the agency usually to secure it. So I think asking for a fee status is is knowing your fee status and asking for it up front, one of the best things you can do to make the FOIA process less painful and contentious. BJ: I think that’s great advice. And for us, what we’re trying to do is train people to be their local media. I think that’s great advice. And for us, what we’re trying to do is train people to be their own local media outlets so essentially everything within a ten mile radius of your home is what we’re encouraging people to report on. In that specific instance, what what could they claim, if anything? Lauren: I think you could say freelancer. I think you could say freelancer, which is member of the news media. You can pick the news media option when you file your request. That was another thing with your article. I think it mentioned either emailing or sending a hard copy of your FOIA request. You certainly can do that. You’re allowed to do that. What I recommend though, honestly, is going through GSA’s PAL portal, public access link portal. Because any other way that you submit a request, whether that’s you’re emailing it, you are mailing it in, or you’re using FOIA.gov, which is the government-wide FOIA portal, when the GSA gets it through any of those venues, they have to manually take all that information and put it into their their PAL portal. So that just creates another step. Sometimes errors can come in when an agency an agency FOIA officer is re-entering information into their direct portal. I would recommend just going directly into their their PAL portal. It keeps all of your correspondences with an agency right there so you can see it, which makes it much easier when you want to appeal. But another really common sense thing that I would just recommend your listeners d

  3. Jun 11

    Thomas DiNapoli Lies About Palantir, South Blooming Grove, and Coddles Elon Musk

    Early voting starts this weekend and continues through Election Day on June 23. If you live in Orange County and you're a registered Democrat, we encourage you to support Raj Goyle instead of the incumbent, Thomas DiNapoli, because of what appears to be an attempt by DiNapoli to bury the audit of South Blooming Grove. Something his office began in March of 2024 and is still going. Why? According to Thomas DiNapoli’s office, “During the audit, we identified matters requiring additional review which has impacted the timing of the audit.” Our guess is this audit will be done around the same time the remaining two to three million Epstein fiels are going to be released. Vote for Raj instead. It may be our only shot at full financial transparency from this Village. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. Note: The following transcript was lightly edited for brevity and clarity. BJ Mendelson, Editor, The Monroe Gazette: Raj, thank you so much for joining us here on The Monroe Gazette. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself? Raj Goyle, Candidate for New York State Comptroller: Thank you for having me, BJ. My name is Raj Goyle and I am a Democratic candidate for New York State Comptroller. BJ Mendelson: Tell us a little about yourself, and a little about yourself before you decided to run. Raj Goyle: I’m running to be the affordability watchdog. I think that we need better Democrats, people who fight and not fold, and that we can lower utility rates and that we can get ICE out of New York and build affordable housing. We can invest and attack the affordability crisis and fight the Trump authoritarian administration. I myself am a dad, I’m a husband, I’m a son, got two teenage daughters. I’ve run a successful New York business. I helped pass the cell phone ban in public schools here in New York. I’ve been a former legislator and perhaps most importantly I’ve been a civil rights lawyer my entire life and so I worked at the ACLU, the NAACP legal defense fund, Public Citizen, and very much believe in holding power accountable. BJ: Here in Orange County, we’re particularly excited for someone to challenge Thomas DiNapoli for some of the reasons that we’re gonna get into. But before we get into that, I first wanna ask you some bigger national … Raj: BJ, I I’m sorry, I need to interrupt you because you realize that I’m an adopted son of Orange County. My wife, Monica Aurora, is a a lifelong New Yorker and a native Orange Countian. And so she, my in-laws immigrated from New Delhi with, you know, five bucks to Rochester in nineteen seventy. And then after six months took a bus to Warwick. And some locals took them in and got them jobs in the school system. And they spent 30 years as lifelong union members and public school teachers. And my in-laws built a gorgeous Indian temple off exit 118 off the Thruway called Bartheam under. BJ: I sometimes feel like we have politicians that will run for a local office that have no connection at all to Orange County. We just had a gentleman, I won’t say who it was, run for Monroe Town Supervisor, who had never gone to a meeting and his only claim to fame was being the chief of staff of a New York State Assemblyman. So there was really no connection that they had with Monroe civically. So I I always love hearing things like that. Before we get into the Orange County stuff, there’s a bigger question I wanted to ask you about because I I really enjoyed the op-ed you wrote in City and State recently. So I have two questions related to that on some of these large national issues that New York State and the New York State Comptroller’s Office play a role in. And so the first is… This is something that we had first pointed out to DiNapoli’s office. Where the New York State Common Retirement Fund held just about 3.5 million shares of Tesla, which is worth about $1.42 billion. And this was around the time where Musk was still in the White House and was beginning his cuts, or not long after where Musk was beginning his cuts, to USAID. It’s projected that the number of people that have died because of these cuts is about seven hundred and sixty-two thousand people, over five hundred thousand of which are children. So we asked DiNapoli’s office basically, you know, would you consider divesting from Tesla? And we kind of got this non answer: “We recognize the concerns regarding Tesla’s governance challenges, recent financial performance, and reputational risks, but we must continue to focus on long-term value and sustainability. Consistent with this approach, we prioritize engagement with corporate management, and only contemplate divestment as an absolute last resort and only then when the Fund would not be negatively impacted by such action.” But I just wanted to ask, if if you were in Mr. DiNapoli’s seat, given what we know now about the Musk cuts to USAID and as well as the, you know, people can’t get accurate weather forecasts because of DOGE… So given all the damage that we can factually say has been caused by Musk, would you, as the comptroller divest from Tesla and other companies owned or operated by him? Raj Goyle: I know I would have a fundamentally different approach to Elon Musk than Tom DiNapoli Even in my launch video, I filmed a scene outside Tesla’s showroom in Manhattan because Tom DiNapoli voted for Elon Musk in a Tesla board election, did not seriously audit Tesla after the boondoggle in Buffalo. And he’s been, as you mentioned, when Elon Musk was taking a literal chainsaw to the federal government when he, you know, on on one of his ketamine fueled binges, causing massive death and destruction and of course not saving the government a dollar. In fact, he will end up costing us vast sums of money. Tom DiNapoli said nothing. And so I will absolutely take just a fundamentally different approach to Musk rather than coddling him. We will fight to make sure that we have not only our values protected in the pension fund, but moreover, we must have clear corporate governance. Elon Musk is taking a meat cleaver to very long establish corporate governance protections for not just investors, but for the people at large and the SpaceX IPO. That’s coming up is is a great example of that. They’re gonna SpaceX investors gonna be able to dump their shares right away, possibly. There is this … he’s got the Nasdaq to list the company much sooner than the normal lockup period to see which is an important investor protection. And so I would absolutely take a very, very different approach to Musk and of course I’m very open to divesting from Musk owned companies. BJ: And just for people listening, the it was the Cato Institute that had pointed out that the DOGE cuts would actually cost more money than what was actually saved. (Something laid out in detail from other reports like this one.) So we’re generally left leaning on this show. I think people know that when they listen to read our work, but I just wanna point out that it was even the conservative think tank that had pointed out that Musk would cause more financial damage… Raj: Well yeah, I mean I think any of us who are who are involved in government and public life, I think could have seen that one a mile a mile away. And I certainly was doing media appearances at the time and and and called that out very, very clearly. And in fact I predicted that the Musk-Trump relationship would fracture as it did. And so, you know, these are volatile people who have very who have no scruples and don’t mask their agenda. They are about self interest and and corporate greed and they do not care one bit about how we succeed as a community, as a people, as an economy. BJ: And this is on a similar topic where Orange County was sort of ground zero for this warehouse expansion that was proposed of taking warehouses across the country and converting them into concentration camps. That’s my term for them. I know most people are okay with that analogy, but some aren’t, and I understand why. But there was this big question of whether or not 29 Elizabeth Drive [in the Village of Chester] was gonna be converted. They eventually backed off, they being ICE and DHS. However, they did open a office in New Windsor that not even the town supervisor was aware of. And there’s also currently a discussion as to what they want to build, if anything, over by Stewart Airport over on the town of Newburgh side. So ICE is very much top of mind, so is DHS. You know, as I write this, ICE is continuing to kidnap Monroe residents. And so there are a number of companies that are currently doing business with DHS and ICE. Dell, UPS, FedEx, Motorola, Comcast, ATT, Lexus Nexus, Home Depot and Lowe’s, Amazon and Palantir, Palantir being the big one. we’ll circle back to Palantir when we get to the next question. But some of these other companies, it’s sort of the same topic of… if you found that they were doing business that deprived American citizens of their rights. What action could you take as the comptroller to help send the message saying that this is not okay? Raj Goyle: Obviously there’s two levers here. There’s divestment and then there’s shareholder activism and and pressure on the company. And I believe Tom has failed at both. Nobody I think fears Tom DiNapoli in terms of corporate responsibility and his strongly worded letters. I don’t know if you listen to the debate we had last week, but you know, a a strongly worded letter from Tom DiNapoli I think, is is so

  4. May 8

    "Populist" James Skoufis & Other Democrats Fails to Protect Immigrant Families. Again.

    Below is a transcript of this week’s podcast. It has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. BJ Mendelson, Host of The Monroe Gazette podcast: Hello everyone, it’s BJ Mendelson. Welcome to another edition of the The Monroe Gazette podcast. We’re still on break, technically, until I finish my book, How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. I should be done next week, I hope, which we originally said was the 15th, when we’re gonna be coming back from our break. I’m gonna try very hard to meet that deadline. If I don’t, I will let you know. We will definitely be done with the book this month. If you would like free copy a free .PDF and a free .mp3 All you have to do is visit stupidsexyprivacy.com that’s our sister website to the Monroe Gazette. Subscribe to that newsletter and as soon as the finished PDF and mp3 are ready we’ll make sure you get a copy. Before we get into today’s interview, I just wanted to touch on something real quick. New York Focus is a great local news resource here in New York. They cover state news and they do a pretty good job of catching stories that otherwise would fall through the cracks. So I’m a big fan of New York Focus. It’s worth a donation. But man, that doesn’t mean it’s above criticism. So, something bad did happen over in New York focus this week. They published what is essentially a puff piece on state senator Skoufis. The headline is so nauseating it says The Young Populist Trying to Redefine the New York Democratic Party — and We Don’t Mean Mamdani. Like, listen … I’ve worked in PR and marketing, so I can spot these puff pieces from a mile away, because that’s what I’ve done for the last 20 years. I can’t say conclusively that The Parkside Group, which is what Mr. Skoufis has used to prop up the candidacy of a far right MAGA weirdo in Woodbury, which wasn’t too long ago, and also used it to plant voicemails to attack and otherwise defame the (now current) Monroe town supervisor. I don’t doubt that someone from The Parkside group wrote to New York Focus with a puff piece and basically laid out everything for them and was like, “hey, Senator Skoufis is up for reelection. Look how cool he is and look at this. Look how successful he is in this red district.” And I just want to fact check this because number one, Democrats outnumber Republicans in Orange County two to one. It is not a red district. It is not redder than almost any other place in New York. And I can say that because I have lived all over New York. Like if you want to visit MAGA LAND go to the North Country, you will see a red district. And that’s true also, like I’ve lived down in Buffalo and the second you leave Erie County and you’re in a place like Wyoming County, where there’s more cows and people. Yeah, it’s MAGA LAND! And I’m not, you know, that’s not an attack on those counties. It’s just me pointing out. Factually that it’s very misleading to portray Orange County as MAGA LAND and that Skoufis is some kind of bastion against the bulwark of MAGA because he’s not. The only reason why this man has any sort of political career is because of corporate donors. If you go and look at his finances, you can see that he’s raised over $6 million. The other reason that he’s done as well as he has is because there is a large group of people who do come out and vote for him consistently, who are atypical when we look at the rest of New York state. If you look at the rest of New York state, we’re unique in Orange County in that we do have a large population of Satmar voters. Many of whom, not all, and I want to underline the words, not all, tend to vote based on what Anash tells them, which is the majority party in Kiryas Joel, for example, or what the criminals in South Blooming Grove, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein tell people. So to portray this man, Skoufis, as being some kind of like progressive agent or a populist agent who’s changing the Democratic Party and challenging the establishment in New York? No, that man is the establishment. This is a man who’s told people, I support New York for all, and then came out just recently against it. This is a man who, despite the fact that 1.2 million people in New York state are going to lose their health insurance by the end of this year. Skoufis is the man who said, I don’t want to vote for the New York Health Act because it’s too expensive. This is not a populist. So I recommend New York Focus. I do think you should check it out. But I saw that and I was just really disappointed. And I needed to tell someone how disappointed I was. This article did not pass the smell test. This looks like a PR puff piece. And I wanted you to know about it because you’re gonna hear in this discussion in today’s episode about how Skoufis has actively worked against the rights of immigrant communities that live here in New York State and immigrant families. That is not a populist. That is a con artist. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free; and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. BJ Mendelson, Host of The Monroe Gazette podcast: Hi Rosa, thank you so much for joining us today. Would you like to take a moment to introduce yourself to our audience? Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Director of Immigration Policy with the Bronx Defenders: Sure, my name is Rosa Cohen Cruz. I’m the Director of Immigration Policy with the Bronx Defenders. BJ Mendelson: And can you tell us a little bit about what the Bronx Defenders does? Rosa Cohen-Cruz: Yeah, the Bronx Defenders is a large public defender not-for-profit that represents people in criminal court, in family court, in immigration court, housing court, and is really one of the organizations that pioneered this model of holistic defense. Were we’re making sure that we’re representing people and providing services for all aspects of the people we serve, not just like one niche legal area. BJ: And have you had any any people that you represent that have been sent to Orange County Jail for one reason or another? Rosa: Yeah, so we are NYIFUP providers, which is the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. Brooklyn Defender Services, Bronx Defender Services and Legal Aid together have been providing universal representation to people in New York who are detained while facing their deportation cases. And we have many, many clients who are at Orange County jail; and over the years have represented many people detained at the Orange County jail. BJ: Is there any particular issues that stand out or instances that come to mind involving the jail that you think people should know about? Rosa: Yeah, the Orange County jail is sort of notoriously one of the worst detention centers that we have had. Where we have had clients. a couple of years ago, there was a reporter that looked at complaints of, harassment by guards and medical issues and various things across all detention centers across the nation. And he sort of picked out some of the worst ones and Orange County Jail was one of the ones that he picked out as, you know, being particularly bad for medical neglect and abuse by guards. And so, I think that has definitely been the experience of the people we’ve represented. We’ve seen people go in healthy and come out with long term chronic illnesses that really developed because of their mistreatment at the facility. I’m sure you’re well aware that there was recently a report done by NYLPI about the medical neglect at the jail. And it has really been a place where we have seen people suffer and deteriorate. We’ve seen mental health, decompensation. We’ve seen people with strong claims for relief from their removal cases give up because of how horrific the conditions in the facility have been. BJ: It’s crazy to hear about because if you watch the legislative meetings for Orange County, we spend a lot of money on that jail. And my impression is that that money is not making its way towards better treatment for the people that are detained there. Is that right? Rosa: I don’t know the ins and outs of how the legislature spends its money, but I can certainly say that whatever financial decisions they’re making, it is not translating into people being well cared for at the facility. People have been suffering there for years. In the summer, we hear complaints about it being extremely hot in the facility. In the winter, we hear complaints about it being extremely cold, about people not being able to access enough blankets or ways to stay warm. We hear about medical neglect. We hear about the food being rotten. That’s been something that’s been shared for years and years. We hear about guards verbally abusing the people who are in detention there. Bronx Defenders was as part of a lawsuit against Orange County Jail for for transferring people in retaliation for hunger strikes several years ago. And those people had been protesting the conditions in the facility. So we have years and years and years of evidence of just how harmful this facility in particular has been, how much pain and damage it has caused to our fellow New Yorkers who have been forced to be caged there. BJ: I couldn’t help but notice that much of these complaints seem to correlate with the emergence of County Executive Steve Neuhaus at the helm of Orange County. The hunger strike goes back to the time where he took over or just after he took over as County Executive. Has anyone tried to bring these issues and concerns to the County Executive Neuhaus Rosa: Well

  5. May 1

    Cowardly Hochul, Skoufis, Other Dems Try to Abandon Immigrant Families

    Pictured Above: A flyer for an event put on by a new local community group, Hudson Valley Caracoles. We’d like to encourage you to attend. Below, Little Dick Energy State Senator Skoufis tries to weasel out of supporting a bill he told numerous Orange County constituents that he supported. He’s not the only Democrat to do so, as you’ll see in today’s post. This man has no reproductive organs to speak of. Yasmine Farhang, whom we spoke to in this podcast interview below, commented on the State Senator’s response, sharing with us: Senator Skouffis’s attempt to rationalize his opposition to New York for All false flat. His rhetoric seeks to demonize New Yorkers by fear-mongering and mis-leading his constituents. He fails to recognize the beliefs that so many New Yorkers hold close - that the importance of keeping families and communities together is bound up with the importance of upholding due process for all. For years, ICE entanglement with state and local agencies has enabled the cruel separation of family members across our state - this includes many people who face disproportionate policing, as well as those who are convicted of crimes and serve prison sentences only to then face a cruel double punishment when funneled to ICE detention and deportation. The bottom line - New York resources must not be used to fuel a federal mass deportation agenda, especially when sending people to ICE is increasingly deadly. I reject Senator Skouffi’s attempt to divide us and we will continue to stand united in calling for New York for All. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. There may be errors as it was generated by an AI and read over by BJ, who usually misses a ton of typos on the first read through. BJ Mendelson, Editor of The Monroe Gazette: Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast. I’m your host, BJ Mendelson. We have two interviews to bring to you today. Both are related to New York for All and some of the activity going on in our community to promote bills such as New York for All and Dignity Not Detention I just wanted to say something real quick. So I am working on finishing my book, How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. It was supposed to be out in February. We basically went and ripped up the whole thing after Alex Pretti was murdered. I thought about doing it after Renee Good was killed, then when Alex Pretti was murdered, we got pushed over the threshold of … You know, needing to redo the entire book. So we rewrote it. We rewrote the entire thing. So it’ll be out. It looks like the end of May. I need to do a lot of stuff to get it ready. This is all a long way of saying that May is probably going to be a quiet month on the Monroe Gazette, just so that I can get the book out. My expectation is that things will be fairly quiet until about May 15th. At that point, I will be done. And then other people will hopefully get involved and finish up the actual production of the book and then I can move on to other things. And then at that point, I’ve been thinking of doing some major changes to the The Monroe Gazette Originally we had two goals. And the first goal was get Tony Cardone out of office, which we succeed in doing. And then the other goal was to sort of document everything that’s happening in South Blooming Grove and try to bring Joel Stern and Isaac Eckstein to justice. So, I mean, we filed three lawsuits so far, and that’s not counting the federal one involving the stolen election. And it doesn’t involve the one with like the 26 residents who are going to file suit to have the village actually audited, because there’s no way Thomas DiNapoli, in an election year, is ever going to release that South Blooming Grove audit. So we figured we were going to sue. My expectation is to focus on South Blooming Grove and then what’s going on over in Sullivan County with Kiryas Skever. I can’t cover everything. And so there’s, there’s a certain like Maginot Line. I don’t know how many of you know what the Maginot Line but like the Maginot Line was basically a barrier that the French created after World War I, where they thought that they would be able to keep the Germans out by building this big ass fortification, which of course did not work at all. It did not work. So I kind of look at [this situation] as crossing the Maginot Line. Crossing the threshold. And we’re definitely at the Maginot Line in terms of like the Monroe Gazette in terms of like its finances. I held on for as long as I could for about two years doing it at a loss. I can’t keep doing that. So in order for it to continue as a publication, it definitely needs to expand its scope a bit in terms of what it covers. So I’m kind of leaning towards just doing like this radical change of focusing again on South Blooming Grove, Kiryas Skever as opposed to sort of the local news. That doesn’t mean we won’t cover the local news. There’s certainly things that’ll come up that are important and that we’ll write about, but it’s just not something that I’m gonna spend so much time on. So I’m telling you this in advance. We’re gonna take a short break. We’ll be back on or around May 15th or probably after that when the book is done. And then after that, we’re gonna kind of…figure out what exactly the Monroe Gazette is going to be covering and what it’s not going to be covering because it just can’t, it can’t continue in the shape that it is. But for now we have two wonderful interviews that we’re going to share with you concerning New York For All. The reason why I went on this whole tangent is because something that really frustrates me is that people don’t want preferential treatment for the Haredi. But those same people don’t want the law to be applied to people that are here, quote unquote, illegally. Again, no one here in America is here illegally. Technically, we’re all here illegally. We’re living on stolen Indian land. That’s a whole other thing. But it doesn’t matter what we think. It doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think, because what matters is what the Constitution thinks. And the Constitution thinks in the 14th Amendment that the law of the United States applies to everyone equally, regardless of whether or not they are a citizen. And so I kind of struggle with this thing of, you know, you don’t want preferential treatment for the Satmar which I understand, but at the same time, you’re saying the law shouldn’t count towards people that are here, quote unquote, illegally. So my thing, the reason why we talk as much as we do about New York for all, Dignity Not Detention, and some of these other things is because our philosophy at the Monroe Gazette is very simple: Everybody counts. Everybody. And that’s sort where we’re coming from in our coverage of South Blooming Grove plus Kiryas Skever plus things like New York for All. So I just want people to understand why we spend as much time talking about it as we do, because we think it’s important, because we think everyone counts. And with that said, let’s get right to those interviews. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free; and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. Interview #1 Yasmine Farhang Yasmine Farhang, Executive Director of the Immigrant Defense Project: My name is Yasmine Farhang and I’m the executive director of the Immigrant Defense Project. And for those who are not familiar with IDP, we have been around for almost 30 years and we fight for justice for immigrants who are impacted at the intersections of the immigration legal system and the criminal legal system. BJ: Can you give us an example of that? Because I try to explain to people that being here in a country, quote unquote, illegally is not actually a criminal offense. It’s a civil offense. Is that right? Yasmine: So IDP was born in the wake of the 1996 immigration laws, which passed Congress and were signed by former President Clinton, which were some of the most draconian immigration laws that kind of shaped the detention and deportation system that we have today. But what people might be less familiar with is that those laws also bound up the criminal legal and the immigration legal systems together to really try to use kind of the policing, the worst of kind of racist policing and the criminal injustice and the criminal legal system to also funnel people to ICE detention and deportation. So, at IDP, we have a really core principle and that principle is that everyone deserves dignity and nobody is disposable. And we know we also approach this work from a racial justice lens and we know that disproportionately black immigrants and immigrants of color are disproportionately impacted at the intersection of those systems. And so, you know, that has been our mission for the last 30 years. And of course, the systems that were built back then are being supercharged now. BJ: Previously we had Senator Andrew Gounardes is the co-sponsor of New York for All. He’s walked us through what the bill does and what it doesn’t do. I’d to hear your perspective on New York for All, why it’s important and what it does. Yasmine: Absolutely. So New York for All, it really is there in the name. it’s really about ensuring that all New Yorkers all around our state, no matter what county they’re living in, no matter what their immigration status are, can rely on the ability to participate in their communiti

  6. Apr 29

    Gun Safety Advocates Lose, Tech Companies Win Under Sneaky NYS Budget Provision

    New articles on The Monroe Gazette are on hiatus until BJ finishes his book, “How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos.” It will be released in late May or early June of this year. If you would like a free .pdf or .mp3 copy of the book when they become available, subscribe to the Stupid Sexy Privacy newsletter here. Articles will resume on The Monroe Gazette in early May. Until then we’ll be running brand new episodes of the podcast. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free; and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. The following is the full transcript from this week’s podcast. The transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity where neded. BJ Mendelson, Editor of The Monroe Gazette: Rory, thank you so much for joining us on The Monroe Gazette. we’ve had a couple of representatives from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on our sister podcast, Stupid Sexy Privacy. But because this is The Monroe Gazette podcast, I was hoping you could take a moment just to introduce yourself and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Rory Mir, Director of Open Access and Tech Community Engagement at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Yeah, I’m happy to and thank you so much for having me on. I’m Rory Mir. I’m the Director of Open Access and Tech Community Engagement at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF has been fighting for over 30 years now. I wasn’t there the whole time, but over 30 years defending our civil liberties online. Basically bringing digital rights into a digital world. So a nonprofit law firm constantly defending innovation, privacy, and I’m particularly interested in defending consumers from bad tech practices from tech companies. BJ Mendelson: The reason why we’re having this discussion on the Monroe Gazette as opposed to Stupid Sexy Privacy is because right now there is a provision in the New York state budget that the Electronic Frontier Foundation caught concerning 3D printers. Could you walk us through that? Rory Mir: Folks that are familiar with the New York budget process know a lot of things get wrapped up into the budget And as usual it gets delayed quite a bit. So we’re still pushing back on it right now. There’s a couple of provision impacting 3d printers which folks are familiar with 2d printers, but 3d printers for folks that aren’t familiar are kind of like hot glue guns that you tell a computer to control and that slowly builds up a shape in three dimensions. Often you see this being used by artists, making cool statues or cosplay costumes. It’s also really common in more commercial settings where people are making prototypes or researchers testing a new shape for things. So it’s really this cool technology that lets you fabricate things without going through big manufacturers and kind of iterate quickly and build up new creative ideas. So we’re fans of this open innovation that it brings to folks on the grassroots level. And what this provision and the budget does is threatens that basically. It curtails a lot of that expressive freedom by mandating a software that we think is dangerous, a print blocking mandate that is yeah so out of fear of ghost guns and people making firearms and firearm components with these machines basically New York State in this proposed budget would have a database of forbidden files and mandate — without any details I need to emphasize — a way for all of these 3D printers to not be able to print shapes that could be used in that context, which I think there’s a lot of good intention coming into this. People are concerned about gun violence and unlicensed firearms. However, when you speak to people who actually understand how these machines work and just the nature of making a 3D shape, it is not something that is possible. There are many ways that any algorithm trying to detect shapes can be undermined quite easily. So we’re concerned that while the people that are being targeted, the people who are trying to make firearms and similar components with these machines will be able to follow a quick tutorial to get around those blocks, the many, many other creators, researchers, innovators, that use and rely on these machines are going to be stuck with this technology that the only real way to do it is to have it be surveilling users and there’s no safeguards in those in the provisions for that. So we’re really worried about the impact that it’ll have on the lawful use of these machines and really just don’t want it to be rushed through this budget process without any safeguards or oversight for those regular lawful users. BJ: So let me break that down a little bit. Because I think the concern from the ghost guns came from the murder of the United Health Care CEO and the claims that Luigi Mangione may have used a 3D printed gun. But my understanding is it’s actually really difficult to make a functioning gun from a 3D printer. Is that right? Rory: Yeah, it requires a level of understanding the craft of it. Technically, you don’t even need a 3D printer. Homemade DIY guns have existed long before 3D printers because it is ultimately a simple machine that once you know how to machine it, you can do it. So 3D printers... You can make a cheap error prone one that might blow up in your hand if you don’t already have that existing knowledge of how firearms work and how to properly put one together. So while it is possible for someone to make one with a 3D printer, there is a level of know-how that has to go into it as well. BJ: Right, and I have to imagine, and this is all getting into hypothetical territory, but I have to imagine that if someone is particularly motivated to print a 3D weapon, that nothing is really going to stop them from doing it. Rory: Yeah, I mean, that gets into this mandated software on these machines. One of the things is that it is easy enough to alter it because it’s unlike something tightly regulated and standard like currency. People will point to you’re not able to print a dollar bill, but that is a very specific reference with very specific design standards. So being able to detect whether it looks like that is quite simple. With a firearm, you’re talking about a function. So any shape that can or can potentially serve that same function falls into that definition. And that gets even further complicated by the fact that with 3D printing, the machine only sees what you’re printing in the moment. So if you print something that has a lot of extra adornments, you can maybe shave it down to a core component. And likewise, if you... kind of print a bunch of pieces of a firearm and then later fuse them together, you can also make one that way. So the machine isn’t gonna see your intention, right? It’s only gonna be able to look at the file and that’s what makes it so easy to game if you are determined to make these firearms. BJ: Right, and so my concern here is the way that this software is described, sounds like, and just how you’ve explained it, it looks like it’s not specifically targeted at guns, it’s targeted at gun-like shapes, is that right? Rory: Yeah, so we’re seeing a few of these in different states that have slightly different language. The New York one is really less detailed than ones we’ve seen in Washington and California. It’ll be decided by a working group without peer review, which is concerning to us. So it could be loaded with people with financial interests on how this works. The thing that is shared across these bills is often the receiver of the firearm, which is the part that needs a serial number when you buy or alterations, which is even more abstract of simple shapes that can turn a handgun into a machine gun, you can make with literally a clothes hanger, or you can 3D print a shape that looks like that. And that is the same sort of abstract shape that is being implicated in these bills. BJ: You were kind enough to send me a bunch of material, which I read through. And I found that I was kind of lost as to what exactly the software does, who exactly would enforce the penalties and then the penalties themselves seemed kind of outrageous. Could you explain those to us? Rory: So in New York, a lot of it is really focused on the sellers. So a lot of the penalties will come to a seller who sells one of these machines that doesn’t have this mandated software on it. So that one of the things that really strikes me about that is that that extends to the second hand market that someone who has a printer today, if this passes in a few years might want to sell it to recoup some of those costs, or maybe get a new one. And then they would be implicated in these same penalties, which really range, but include potentially financial penalties or liability for anything that is done with the machine that is sold. BJ: I was kind of shocked at this suggestion that people would have to buy, [the 3D printers face to face.] So if you lived in our region and you wanted a 3D printer because you saw what was being done at SUNY New Paltz, or you are interested in resistance work where you want to print out whistles for detecting ice, that you would have to go and meet someone in person to purchase a 3D printer. Is that right? Rory: Yeah. It’s absurd. I feel that not only for the purchase, but for the delivery of the device. And there’s no exception to commercial folks. So this bill includes 3D printers as well as something called CNC machines, which are similar to 3D printers, but kind of do the opposite. They

  7. Apr 24

    If You Think You're Safe From ICE, You're Wrong

    Below is a transcript from today’s episode of the podcast. It has been edited for brevity and clarity. Above is a flyer for tomorrow’s event. We hope you can be there. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free; and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette: Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of The Monroe Gazette podcast. I want to let you know that on Saturday, April 25th, which will be tomorrow for most of you that listen to this, there’s going a national day of action stop other ICE warehouse detention centers. As some of you know, we for now have blocked 29 Elizabeth Drive here in the village of Chester from becoming a ICE detention facility. But you know, the fight goes on across the country. Tomorrow (Saturday) From 12 to 1.30 p.m. at the Orange County Government Center at 255 Main Street in Goshen, New York. There’s going to be a National Day of Action that’s organized by Indivisible Goshen, Rural Migrant Ministries, and Gateway House among numerous others. So we really hope to see you. As a lot of you know, even though we did block the ICE Detention Center from opening up in Chester; over in Orange County Jail in Goshen, they still have an entire wing that is dedicated to housing ICE detainees. So. ICE is not completely out of our community. All that said, I’m joined today by a representative of Public Citizen, which is one of the organizations that put this coalition together. Omar, I’m hoping you might take a moment just to introduce yourself and tell us what you do at Public Citizen. Omar Angel Perez, Rule of Law Coordinator at Public Citizen: Hi everyone, my name is Omar Angel Perez and I am the rule of law coordinator for Public Citizen and in this role I work with different grassroots and community organizations across the country. We’re focused on protecting democracy and the rule of law. And in this case, working with different partners, and primarily the Detention Watch Network organizing this day of action across the country. BJ: And can you tell us real quick, I know some of our older listeners might be familiar with Public Citizen from the days of Ralph Nader, but could you just tell us some of the other things that Public Citizen does that they might not be aware of? Omar: Yeah, so Public Citizen is an organization that has been around for 50 years now and its primary focus is the protection of democracy regardless who is in power and the White House and the Congress. In the last two, three administrations, we’re just keeping an eye on how the administrations have been conducting themselves in this case since the first Trump administration, Public Citizen joined other organizations on different occasions, beginning with a focus on preserving democracy in the country and protecting communities who have been under attack. BJ: And just full disclosure for people listening, I am a paid member of Public Citizen. I get the newspaper. I recommend that everyone join. Omar, can you tell us a little bit about what is happening this weekend? Omar: Yeah, so as we all know, because it’s been in the media a lot, the Trump administration has been expanding their capacity to target immigrant communities, regardless of their status. And we witnessed the deployment of national guard and ICE agents in different parts of the country, different cities taken over. I’m based in Washington, D.C. I live in Washington, D.C. I have two kids who go to elementary school here in the district. And We witnessed how ICE agents were literally taking over our streets, targeting our neighbors, arresting people. Arresting teachers, caregivers outside our schools. And that’s one way how this administration has been targeting our communities and neighborhoods. The other way they’ve been doing is expending their capacity by Republicans in Congress allocating more money to fund DHS and ICE. And expanding also the detention centers by buying warehouses across the country. We know because there’s a lot of reports out there about the horrible conditions. People are being in this detention center, some people calling them actually concentration camps because the conditions they are on there. BJ: Yes. Omar: Right like there are in Daly, Texas outside of San Antonio, there are incarcerated minors, minors who’ve been in, you know, with no way to be in contact with the loved ones, with their attorneys, like nobody knows what’s happening to them. We know stories of pregnant women with no access to medical care in these detention centers. There is a report that’s coming out about forced labor. People in detention, migrants have been forced to work through this program that ICE has in place and all that they get paid is like one dollar per day. And so there is these horrible conditions that this administration are … BJ: Wow. Omar: Keeping our people under. And now they want to increase their capacity to continue detaining people, churning people, and they want to expand their capacity by buying these warehouses, and with a capacity of detaining between 1,500 to 10,000 people. And these warehouses have no conditions to, like … They are warehouses. They’re not to, you know, house people. They’re there to store stuff, but not people. So we’re missing what’s happening right now. We just cannot imagine what will be the conditions these people are going to be held if they are allowed to, if they are able to expand their capacity by buying these warehouses and expanding these detention centers. So Public Citizen, the Disappear America campaign, Detention Watch Network and Indivisible, Move On are the core partners of this day of action that is started by a group of folks coming together and thinking, okay, what we can do in this moment to bring attention what is happening and also responding to the outcry of the community in different parts of the country? Pushing back this intention of expanding ICE capacity of detaining people. So we started basically with the idea of saying, okay, let’s organize the day of action. And then it went from that idea to like massively have a response from the communities across the country. And what we started, we’re thinking about, we’re going to have like one action, probably in DC, expanding out to almost 200 actions across the country. If you go to the mobilize page, you will see the map. And it’s, we’re talking about, you know, from Texas to Alaska, from Washington state to New Mexico, like it’s all over because people are tired of this situation and people are, speaking out after the horrible condition we witnessed people are in these detention centers. BJ: Absolutely. And I think it’s important to stress to people that even when the media moves away, they being ICE and DHS and the other federal agencies are still snatching people. They’re still snatching people in Chicago. What they did was they moved more towards like the outer rim of the city. I have a lot of friends in Los Angeles and we still are hearing reports every day of strong ICE activity. So even if the cameras are gone, it’s important that these events happen because I think people need to realize that it hasn’t stopped. ICE hasn’t gone anywhere. Even if you don’t hear about it in the news so much, they are still very active out there. Omar: Yeah, they are very, very, very active. As you say, just yesterday I was with a driver, happened to be this woman from El Salvador. And she was telling me how she has to like work multiple jobs now because her husband was detained just like a few days ago while he was on his way to work. And even when he was, he has a case, a legal case, and he was going through the process of the case, he was a team with another group of coworkers, and now he is being deported to Guatemala, a country that he left when he was a minor. He’s been in the country for more than 20 years, and what we’re seeing is precisely that, right? Like, they don’t care who you are. If you look at it as an immigrant, you are a target. Regardless what your status, regardless you have a criminal history or background, whatever it is. And I just want to say here, right, a parenthesis, people have this narrative about like the good and bad immigrant, who is deserving, who has a criminal record and all that. We need to remind ourselves since the Trump administration, they criminalize being an immigrant. They criminalize being in this country. Like, regardless the way how you came in, regardless how one was brought in when you were a kid. This dehumanization of immigrants by criminalizing everybody, right? And, and it’s very punitive. By doing that, they are violating basically all laws or processes or proceedings. They themselves don’t respect the laws that they have in place by the way they are acting. BJ: A number of studies have come out since the first Trump administration that demonstrates if you are here as an immigrant, you’re more likely to contribute to your community. You’re more likely to pay your taxes. You’re less likely to commit crime than an American citizen. It’s sort of like the we’ve allowed the the corporate media and the Trump administration to kind of tell people the opposite is true. Omar: Absolutely, yeah. we see also, I there are polls coming out almost every day that shows where the American people stand on this, right? Like, they are not only against the incarceration of immigrants, they are not only not happy about how this administration is handling the immigra

  8. Apr 22

    This Could Be Your Last Shot at Getting New York For All Passed

    Below is the transcript from today’s podcast episode. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. *** BJ Mendelson: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Monroe Gazette podcast with your host, BJ Mendelson. We interviewed State Senator Andrew Gounardes today about the New York for All Act. There’s a lot of discussion going on about this bill, particularly in the town of Monroe, as you might have seen if you watch the two recent town board meetings. (Below, at 48:49 from this week’s meeting, you can see the bill being discussed by residents, and then at 1:03:18 you can hear the Town Board’s response as to why they are not moving forward with it.) BJ: We’ve been trying to get them [The Town of Monroe] to pass a ceremonial — it’s purely ceremonial, it’s not binding in any way, shape, or form — resolution that would encourage State Senator Skoufis and assembly members Eachus and Brabenec who represent Monroe, to endorse and support the New York for All Act. This is one of the things that Skoufis says he supports, but Skoufis says he supports lots of stuff. (Skoufis is not a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate. Eachus, Kay, and Brabenec are not co-sponsors in the Assembly.) Like with any any of these politicians these days, you have to look at what they do and not what they say. So the jury is still out on that one. However, we did speak with Senator Gournardis. I do want to bring the interview to you. I think we had a great discussion. It’s a little brief. But it will bring you up to speed on the New York for All Act. Before we get to it, I want to let you know that this Saturday, April 25th is not only my birthday, but it is also another hands-off Hudson Valley stand-up event. So we hope to see you on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the corner of Lake Street and 17M in the town of Monroe. If you’re concerned about the corporate Democrats dragging their feet on passing New York for All, be there. If you’re concerned about why Congressman Pat Ryan does not support Medicare for All, be there. And if you have concerns about the village of Monroe, and there’s a lot to be concerned about with the new Melchiorrie-Mancuso axis, because clearly it looks like former mayor Mancuso is in charge and Alex Melchiorre is just there as a plant for the real estate developers … If you’re concerned about that, we also would like to see you Saturday, 1 p.m. at the corner of 17M and Lake Street in the village of Monroe. All that being said, let’s get to today’s interview. The Monroe Gazette is brought to you commercial free and with no pay-wall to access over two years of our coverage of issues both in Southern Orange County and beyond. If you would like to help us keep the lights on, we’re looking to recruit 500 new, paid annual subscribers between now and December 31st. All you have to do is hit the button below. Paid subscribers get access to occasional bonus content, podcast audio, our behind the scenes Facebook group, and the ability to comment on posts just like this one. Our Interview With State Senator Andrew Gounardes BJ Mendelson, The Monroe Gazette : Would you like to take a moment just to introduce yourself to people who might not be familiar? State Senator Gounardes: I’m State Senator Andrew Gounardes from Brooklyn, New York. BJ: And I know that you, we’ve talked before about New York For All, but for people that are just coming into this midstream, could you briefly explain to us what this bill does? State Senator Gounardes: Absolutely. So, New York for All is a piece of legislation that I sponsor that would prohibit any local or state government agency or any local or state law enforcement agency from colluding and conspiring with ICE for the purposes of immigration enforcement unless there is a signed judicial warrant by a federal judge. And why this is so important is because we’ve seen all across the state an increase in the circumstances and instances where local governments, particularly local law enforcement, are working hand in hand with ICE or CBP, which is Customs and Border Patrol, along many of our northern border communities. And they’re working hand in hand with them to carry out immigration enforcement. And that looks like a lot of different things. It could be that local law enforcement are arresting people on false pretenses, and then turning them over to ICE. It could be that local law enforcement is tipping ICE off to where undocumented immigrants might be, or sharing information about undocumented immigrants, and then kind of facilitating this dragnet of a draconian immigration policy that we’re seeing play out all across the country. And why this is so important to stop is because A, we just fundamentally believe that New York State resources and New York State personnel and our tax dollars should not be used to facilitate and contribute to this terrible immigration crackdown that is literally tearing families apart, especially because ICE is now one of the most well-funded law enforcement entities in the country. I mean, they have a $75 billion budget. Why do they need our help? And secondly, and this actually might be more important, it actually doesn’t help increase public safety when you let local governments or local law enforcement work hand in hand with ICE, because all that does is push people into the shadows and it tells them that they should not call local police for help, that they should not trust that when they call 911 for assistance, that they’re actually gonna be taken care of, that they should not go to a local public hospital when they need emergency care. And what could be more destabilizing to the safety of not only an individual, but to a whole community when you can no longer trust your local government? And that’s what we see happening play out all across the state, which is why New York for All is so critically important. BJ: Absolutely. And just so you can help me clarify a couple of things that popped up in Orange County. Recently, there was a protest about the agreement with Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus to house ICE detainees at OCJ, Orange County Jail. The county executive, when asked about the protest, said that legislation in Albany, such as New York for All, would end that agreement. Is that right? Is that how that works? State Senator Gounardes: So it would not be the New York for All bill, it would actually be the Dignity Not Detention bill, but the same premise applies. So Dignity Not Detention basically says that local governments cannot enter into contracts with ICE to use their jail facilities for immigration detention. So broadly speaking, he [Neuhaus] is correct. He got the name of the bill wrong, but he’s correct. We’re trying to both of these practices. BJ: In the town of Monroe, we’ve been trying to get them to pass a purely ceremonial resolution in support of New York for All. And one of the reasons they gave against it was that Hochul apparently has like this watered down version. So I’m just hoping you can clarify what the difference is between the actual New York for All and this watered down weak version that Kathy Hochul is pushing. State Senator Gounardes: Well, the governor proposed several weeks ago a measure called Local Cops Local Crimes Act, which would basically ban any formal agreement between the local government and ICE. These are known as 287-G agreements. Now, these types of agreements are where local entities enter into a formal partnership, it’s like a signed contract, about what they will or will not assist ICE with. And there’s different ways that this could take. There could be agreements to house immigrants in local detention facilities. It can be agreements to share certain types of information. It can be agreements to deputize your local law enforcement to act as ICE agents side by side with ICE, as we’re seeing in Nassau County. So the governor’s proposal is to ban those. And that’s good, and that’s important. And New York For All would also ban those. But we’ve seen so much collusion that is not formalized in a contract, like a 287-G agreement all across the state. Earlier this year, everyone has made national news, the Rohingya refugee in Buffalo, Nurul Alam who had a legal status to be here, he was a refugee with legal status, was arrested by the Erie County Sheriff on false charges, was held for nearly a year, and then was just simply turned over to Customs and Border Patrol. For whatever they were going to do with him and then five days later he showed up dead on the side of the road. The governor’s proposal would not address those circumstances. In Port Chester, West Chester County earlier this year, there was a young man driving to church and he was pulled over by the police for having tinted windows. Now, tinted windows, you if you have them, you get a ticket, you get a desk appearance ticket, you gotta show up. Just like if had a broken tail, you gotta show up, you gotta say, well, I fixed the window, I fixed the tail light, whatever. He was not given a desk appearance ticket. He was brought into the local precinct, he was detained, and then he was transferred to ICE for immigration detention. And last we heard he was in Louisiana trying to fight off his deportation. That’s the type of collusion that New York for all would prevent that the governor’s proposal would not put a stop to. And then just last week, the governor made another amendment to her proposal and she said, we would not allow local law enforcement to coordinate with ICE unless they had probable cause that an immigrant may have committed a crime. Now, that to me, and I think to many people, is highly problematic because that is such a subjective standard. And, you know, just last week in Brooklyn in a different circumstance, local police officers went into a bodega to arrest someone that they thought they had probable cause

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The audio edition of The Monroe Gazette's long form local news coverage. For paid subscribers only. www.monroegazette.com

Information

  • Creator
    B.J. Mendelson
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Earth's Temporary Solution LLC
  • Show Website
    The Monroe Gazette Podcast