(LifeSiteNews) — Over 500 of the thousands of unlawfully terminated or displaced New York City and state workers who were forced out of their careers and businesses beginning in 2021 under the pretext of the COVID-19 shot mandate have sent a letter to newly appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon requesting an investigation into their firings.
Their letter decries their forced terminations for “non-compliance with an unconstitutional COVID-19 vaccine mandate” that “was never voted on by any legislative body, nor ratified by any union membership via the proper collective bargaining process.”
“Assistant Attorney General Dhillon, there is no one waiting in the wings in New York to save the unlawfully terminated or displaced workers and business owners,” wrote the signatories. “The Department of Justice under the Trump Administration is our best hope. Please help us!”
Those who signed the letter include but are not limited to firefighters, police officers, teachers, social workers, sanitation workers, correction workers, members of the judiciary, medical doctors, nurses, scientists, doormen, and freelancers.
“Many workers who were not terminated were coerced into early retirement with a financial penalty, waived their labor rights, resigned or returned to work having lost seniority and without backpay,” explains the letter. “Others were forced to accept demotions, were denied promotions or lost job opportunities. In what can be considered an outright disregard of the law, many workers were not even served with a final notice of leave without pay, a charge or a termination notice prior to separation from their employment.”
“Despite the ending of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, neither New York State nor New York City has done anything to get the experienced, tenured and valuable workers reinstated,” note the signatories. “Instead, the administrators who carried out the unlawful vaccine mandate continue to destroy the fabric of the workforce and deny the truth, which is that they deceptively took advantage of a public health scare to mass fire workers and destroy private businesses.”
In particular, they call out former Mayor Bill de Blasio, his then-Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi, his Mayoral Expert Advisor Jay Varma, Mayor Eric Adams, his former Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, his then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, Governor Kathy Hochul, and her then-Health Commissioner Mary Bassett as only a few of the political leaders and health bureaucrats who violated their constitutional and labor rights.
“The Trump administration has stood up for our military men and women, reinstating all members who were terminated for refusing the experimental COVID shot, with back pay and an apology,” they explained. “This action has given hope to affected Americans who are seeking justice so they can return to their jobs and restore their businesses, like in our cases.”
While there as yet has been no official response from an earlier letter the group wrote to President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Michael Kane, who runs Teachers for Choice, predicted that dealing with Harmeet Dhillon is a “different ballgame” because she has previously called the COVID-19 shot mandates for children and adults an ongoing civil rights crisis.
In fact, said Kane, she accepted her current position at the DOJ in order to “right this issue.”
“I think we will get a response from Harmeet,” Kane told LifeSiteNews, “because this falls directly within her wheelhouse.”
Separately, in what is perhaps a timely sign of hope for the wrongly-displaced workers, NYC Council member Joanne Ariola posted a letter on X this afternoon thanking First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro for being open to bringing back the city’s fired workers.
“Recently, I’ve had some very productive conversations with the administration, including the First Deputy Mayor, about putting a plan into place to return all workers separated from city service due to the Covid-19 vaccine mandate,” wrote Ariola. “I stressed that these workers must not be required to sign a waiver of their civil service rights in order to return to city service so that they may continue pursuing lawsuits for back pay and credit for the years of service they lost. I believe these workers are owed this compensation.”
“The correction of this grave injustice is long overdue,” added Ariola.
Statement on Progress Toward Getting Employees Forced to Leave City Service Due to COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Back to Work
#LetThemWork
#ReinstateAndCompensate@bravest4choice @teacher_choice @DannyDeHulk86 @GeorgeGarvey37 @cops4freedom @cafecitobreak @noykreport… pic.twitter.com/y1wxqgXaki— Joann Ariola NYC Council District 32 (@JoannAriola32) May 2, 2025
“This isn’t something that’s going away. This isn’t something that people have forgotten. This is one of the worst civil rights violations of this century,” declared Kane.
“Democrats want to pretend it never happened, but that’s not happening,” he added.
