The WJCNY staff and board are beyond overjoyed this week with some long-overdue legislative wins! The passage of the “Green Light NY” bill permitting access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrant New Yorkers along with the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act were long-overdue victories for NY’s immigrant farmworker communities.

This are historic wins! An estimated seven-hundred fifty-thousand individuals in NY stand to benefit from the life-altering ability to identify oneself with a state-issued I.D, to apply for a driver license and purchase insurance, to access their children's schools, churches, medical appointments, grocery stores, and increase social integration in their communities. The human impact of being able to access driver licenses is immeasurable for NY's immigrant communities.

Further, the estimated eighty-thousand farmworkers who work on New York farms will finally be ensured overtime pay, the right to organize their workplaces and collectively bargain and the right to a day of rest, among other protections. A remnant of the Jim-Crow era, the nearly ninety years of exclusion of farmworkers from these essential labor rights has finally been remedied and the dignity and of the agricultural workforce duly recognized and respected.

WJCNY thanks all of our coalition partners across the state who worked tirelessly for years for passage of these bills. We further express our sincere gratitude to legislative bill sponsors Senators Luis R. Sepúlveda and Jessica Ramos as well as Assembly Members Marcos Crespo and Catherine Nolan and finally, to Governor Andrew Cuomo for his leadership in making NY a place that truly welcomes and embraces our immigrant neighbors and friends.