Ahead of president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration later this month, some Ithaca residents are calling on the city’s common council to pass legislation that would affirm the city’s commitments to protecting individuals who could be targeted during a second Trump term.
A group of concerned community members spoke at Ithaca’s first common council meeting of the year in support of Ithaca’s laws that designate the city as a “sanctuary” for certain groups, including undocumented immigrants and people from out of state who are in Ithaca to get an abortion. The laws limit city cooperation with out-of-state investigations into people seeking or providing gender-affirming and reproductive health care, as well as federal deportation efforts.
Several Ithacans urged the city to renew its commitment to those laws as they worried that those groups could face increased risks during Trump’s second term. On the campaign trail, president-elect Trump promised mass deportations and restrictions on gender affirming care, particularly for minors. During his first term, Trump nominated three of the six conservative Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe vs. Wade, revoking constitutional abortion protections. Although Trump has said he would veto a national abortion ban, he has expressed support for state abortion bans.
In 2017, during Trump’s first term as president, Ithaca’s common council unanimously voted to limit city cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and deportations, joining cities like New York, Chicago and Seattle in establishing similar protections during the first Trump term. The law prevents city employees, including police, from engaging in federal immigration enforcement or asking about a person’s immigration status unless it is necessary to investigate a crime.
Then, after the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade and many states passed new abortion restrictions in 2022, Ithaca declared itself a sanctuary city for reproductive health care. That meant the city committed to not cooperating with outside investigations or detentions of people who come to Ithaca to get an abortion from a place where it has been banned.
Most recently in 2023, after several other states introduced regulations aimed to limit young transgender peoples’ access to gender-affirming care, like hormone therapy and puberty blockers, the common council passed a resolution that declared Ithaca as a sanctuary city for transgender care. That came after New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law that designated the state as “safe haven” for transgender youth.
Caitlin Hunter works at an organization that provides abortion and gender-affirming care to New Yorkers and patients from out of state. At last week’s common council meeting, she urged the city to pass a resolution recommitting to its role as a safe-haven for people seeking care.
“Regardless of what happens at the national level, regardless of what happens at the state level, we need to be focused on what we can do to protect our city, to protect our community members,” Hunter said during the public comment period.
Hunter added that care is already under attack by out-of-state actors, referencing a recent lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that accuses a New York doctor of sending abortion pills to a 20-year-old Texas woman, breaking Texas laws.
“These are no longer abstract thought threats,” Hunter said. “They are rather ever-present dangers and attempts by out of state officials aiming to regulate what happens here in New York, in our cities, in our communities,”
Adam Hart, chair of the Ithaca Communist Party USA, read a statement on behalf of the chapter and other area political and social groups.
“We oppose any attempt to conscript our public officials and public resources into serving a cruel and discriminatory agenda that the people of Ithaca have overwhelmingly rejected,” he said. “We stand with those members of our community targeted by MAGA forces and we call on our elected officials to do the same.”
Following the public comment period, Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo said a resolution reaffirming sanctuary city protections would be brought before the council later this month.
In a prior interview with WSKG, Cantelmo said people who had protected status in Ithaca are “still welcome here.”
“The ethos of Ithaca is very clear: We are a place for anyone,” he said.