The New York County Lawyers’ Association on Tuesday announced that it is joining efforts to mobilize against mass deportations, a campaign promise of the incoming Trump administration, that may take place without due process.

As the transition for President-elect Donald Trump's second term is in motion, NYCLA, which has nearly 8,000 members, said that it will be reaching out to bar leaders and others to convene summit meetings to coordinate efforts, share ideas and pool resources, in the same manner as its advocacy for a diverse judiciary in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that rolled back affirmative action in college admissions.

“We look forward to working with our state and local officials, our courts, and the rest of our city’s legal community to protect those riches and to help our nation live up to its founding principle that government should be of laws and not of men,” NYCLA President Adrienne Koch said.

Separately, Camille Mackler, executive director of the Brooklyn-based Immigrant ARC, said NYCLA’s plan was “exactly what we’ve been preparing to do.”

“There are processes. Failed, flawed, under pressure, cracked and broken as they may be, there is an immigration legal process that has to be respected,” said Mackler, whose organization is a coalition of more than 80 organizations borne out of the response by hundreds of lawyers who descended on John F. Kennedy International Airport in January 2017 to help those caught in the Muslim travel ban brought by Trump’s first administration.

Trump on Monday named Tom Homan, former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first administration, as border czar in his incoming administration. Homan has urged migrants to self-deport.

Trump plans to restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program that had forced asylum seekers of certain nationalities attempting to enter the U.S. to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases, prompting concern from the NYCLA.

Trump said he plans to deploy National Guard troops from cooperative states to assist with deportations in “unfriendly” ones, while sending deportation officers to particular types of protests, and use the Alien Enemies Act to deport individuals suspected of gang affiliation.

The NYCLA said this reverts to darker times in international history, including when the act was used to justify the internment of people of Japanese, German and Italian descent during World War II.

“We cannot help but be reminded of the Palmer Raids against suspected Socialists and Communists in 1919-20—which ultimately led to the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union, but not before countless innocent people were subject to unlawful arrest and inhumane detention,” the NYCLA statement read.