Sophia Tobia Gage (CAIR NY) testifies on anti-Muslim hate crime data gaps

Good afternoon.

The Council on American Islamic Relations New York would like to thank Chair Yusef-Salaam and the entire committee to combat hate for the opportunity to provide testimony here today.

My name is Sophia Tobia Gage and I'm speaking on behalf of CARE New York.

CARE New York is the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in New York State.

Our mission is to protect the civil liberties, promote justice, and empower Muslim New Yorkers.

We serve the 800,000 to 1 million Muslim New Yorkers from extremely diverse backgrounds, racial and ethnic origins, as well as non-Muslim communities that have long been among the primary targets of hate crimes in this city.

As many of you know, Mayor Mamdani invested $26 million into the Department of Community Safety, which includes the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes.

This investment is a meaningful step toward addressing the persistent and deeply harmful patterns of hate and violence our communities have faced, ensuring this city flourishes as a place for all who live here.

We urge the City Council to match the Mayor's commitment and to ensure these resources reach the community-based organizations like Care New York that are on the front lines of this work.

Since October 2023, Care New York witnessed a dramatic surge in reports of bias related to incidents in the subway, in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods where community is meant to gather and feel safe.

These trends reveal that we are not dealing with isolated incidents of discrimination, of violence, or of harassment, but rather this is a true reflection of the broader climate of dehumanization.

of vulnerable communities.

This requires urgency and coordination between the city and said community organizations.

The numbers speak for themselves, right?

Based on figures Care New York has carefully collected, hate crimes against Muslims has risen an alarming 130% between 2020 and 2025 nationally.

This represents a small fraction of actual incidents as our communities consistently under report due to fear and distrust and a lack of accessible resources.

In our...

In our Feeling the Hate report, we found that 64% of Muslims have experienced a hate crime, bias incident, or both.

Yet only 4% of those who experienced a hate crime reported it to law enforcement because they either did not trust that or did not feel like a productive action to report to such agencies.

And lastly, that 75% of Muslim women have experienced a hate crime, a bias incident, or both.

In 2024, the NYPD recorded only 43 anti-Muslim hate crimes in New York City, yet as I demonstrated, Care New York received significantly more reports from our community that same year.

We are capturing more incidents than the official police data reflects, which means there is a persistent and troubling gap between official data and the reality on the ground.

On a statewide level, the New York State Comptroller reports that hate crimes against Muslim New Yorkers rose 106% between 2018 and 2018.

These are not abstract data points.

These are people.

These are our entire communities.

Community-based organizations have been leading hate-based hate violence prevention efforts for years, fighting identity-based violence and trauma-informed support to hate crime survivors long before dedicated city funding existed for this purpose.

Care New York is a direct...