Suspend Enforcement of Hoboken’s “Tests and Vests” Ordinance

In light of increased ICE activity in our community, we are respectfully asking Hoboken’s City Council to suspend enforcement of the “Tests and Vests” delivery registration program.

Adopted in 2024, this law requires delivery workers, who are overwhelmingly immigrants, to come to a municipal office, provide identification and contact information for entry into a City-run database, and wear a brightly colored, numbered vest in order to work in Hoboken.

That approach may have seemed reasonable at the time, but under today’s circumstances it is simply unworkable and inappropriate.

Hoboken’s delivery workforce includes people of mixed immigration status: U.S. citizens, visa holders, lawful residents, and others who may lack formal documentation. Asking any of these workers to voluntarily walk into a government office and register their personal information, especially during a period of heightened immigration enforcement, is unrealistic and deeply unsettling. The City should not be maintaining a database like this in the first place.

The vest requirement only compounds the problem. Requiring workers to wear high-visibility vests with large identification numbers effectively marks them in public as delivery workers. In the current climate, that creates unnecessary fear and risk for people who are simply trying to earn a living.

If there are legitimate concerns about safety involving electric bicycles, the solution is straightforward and already available: enforce existing traffic laws. A government-mandated “dress code” tied to a registry does not meaningfully improve our community’s safety, and it does real harm.

Whatever the original intent of this policy, the moment calls for a pause. We are asking the Hoboken City Council to introduce an ordinance at its next meeting to remove Ch. 168, Art. V of the City Code. Once it passes First Reading, we urge Mayor Jabbour to issue an Executive Order immediately halting enforcement and directing the deletion of the existing municipal registry.

Hoboken often says it stands with its immigrant community. This is an opportunity to show that those words mean something — by removing fear, not adding to it.