By the end of the year, travelers in and out of New York’s airports who rely on Global Entry, a program designed to get them through customs with less hassle, may be out of luck, as the Trump administration appears bent on taking those privileges away.

Global Entry is a program of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service that allows pre-approved, low-risk travelers to receive expedited clearance through automatic kiosks at select airports upon arrival into the United States. Some 175,000 New Yorkers would be expelled from the program by the end of this year, while an estimated 50,000 - 80,000 with pending applications will also be out of luck.

The ban, announced by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month also affects other trusted traveler programs like FAST, NEXUS and SENTRI programs which could inconvenience truck travelers that pass through the Canadian border into and out of New York State.
The ruling is an apparent retaliation for the passage of New York’s Green Light Law, signed into effect last year by Governor Andrew Cuomo to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and blocks New York’s Department of Motor Vehicles from sharing its records with federal immigration agencies unless so ordered by a federal court. More than a dozen other states, plus the District of Columbia, grant driving privileges without regard to immigration status, but New York is the first to make its DMV database off-limits to immigration agents. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed so-called green-light laws allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but New York is apparently the first to feel any backlash.

The move is a sign of a growing rift between the Governor and the President, who has had no kind things to say about his home state since he changed his legal residence to Florida last year.

New Yorkers may well be divided over laws meant to protect undocumented residents. But a blatant action supposedly meant to keep some illegal aliens out of the country will also punish tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens.

Call that what you will. We’d call it retribution.