This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month comes just weeks before a pivotal midterm election, where issues like immigration and the economy are front and center. Latino elected officials in New York state say they are tackling those issues head-on.
Assemblymember Karines Reyes is a Bronx Democrat who leads the Legislature’s Puerto Rican and Hispanic Task Force. She said overreach by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been "of great concern."
"It was something that we tried to tackle,” Reyes said.
She was a co-sponsor of the New York for All immigration bill that would have provided sweeping protections. That bill once again failed in the Legislature, but a mask ban for law enforcement did make it into the state budget. Other provisions did, too, like a ban on formal cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE, and new language around areas protected from immigration enforcement without warrants, like schools and hospitals.
“It was definitely an omnibus package of priorities, not everything we wanted to see,” Reyes said. “We … got to the formal parts of collaboration with immigration enforcement, but we understand that there are very insidious informal forms of collaboration that happen that we would like to address in the next session.”
Luis Miranda, the founding president of the Hispanic Federation, said the salience of immigration as a top-of-mind issue for New York’s Latino voters has changed over the years as the population has diversified.
“When I was the president of the Hispanic Federation, we did a survey on Latino New Yorkers every single year, and issues of affordability, crime, sort of the usual suspects as issues that affect every New Yorker were always at the top of the list,” Miranda said. “Immigration was never one of the top issues. It has become a top issue because Republicans have made it a top issue.”
But affordability and economic opportunity remain priorities for the Task Force, Reyes said. In the 2025 budget, members were able to secure $30 million for what’s called the Lucha Fund, which supports organizations that help Latino communities. The first round of funding went out last month.
“Particularly geared towards Latino-serving organizations or Latino organizations that are doing work around housing, education, employment, anything that has to do with upward mobility,” Reyes said. “We wanted to give them kind of some access to some dollars to amplify their efforts.”
Dan Irizarry — the founder of Capital District Latinos, an organization that offers cultural, educational and health-related services — said while improvement is happening, there is still a high degree of need in several communities.
“Insofar as healthcare is concerned, insofar as nutrition, rights, all of these issues are really presenting a challenge to us,” he said.
Economic opportunity and affordable housing will also be some priorities next session for Task Force member and state Assemblymember Jonathan Rivera, a Buffalo Democrat. He’s running unopposed for a state Senate seat in November.
“The number one thing that drove Latinos to this part of the country for the last probably 100 years has been employment,” Rivera said. “If … we can do better on wages, then we're going to continue to attract people in upstate New York."
