Author: JHISN

JHISN Newsletter 05/03/2025

Posted on May 3, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

The sidewalks are bursting with people, 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights is filled with immigrant workers, mothers, babies in strollers, fathers with sons and daughters in tow, grandmas, teenagers … It is May Day 2006, organized under the banner ‘A Day Without An Immigrant.’ Millions of immigrants and their allies take to the streets in massive demonstrations across the US with a show of strength and solidarity, standing up against legislation threatening undocumented communities and calling for comprehensive immigration reform. 

Almost two decades later, it can feel hard to remember that moment of power and promise.

But May Day 2025 in New York saw immigrant justice movements in the streets again, this time arm in arm with movements for Palestine liberation, union labor, democratic process, and an end to billionaire oligarchy. As our first article highlights, both locally and nationally we see immigrant struggles actively making links with other mobilizations for freedom and justice. Collaborative politics in response to authoritarian threats is one strategic way forward.

Our second article turns to the small carceral island floating between Queens and the Bronx. We look at Rikers Island and efforts to overturn the hard-won victory of getting ICE out of Rikers. Mayor Adams and his new buddies at DHS are trying to re-open ICE deportation operations at Rikers. People are fighting back.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Joining hands across issues: immigrant justice makes allies
  2. ICE returns to Rikers Isle? Not so fast

1. Allies at the Intersections

“The regime’s actions are designed to spread fear, break apart communities, and discourage public dissent. However, we have a clear message for the Trump regime: We refuse to be silent as our communities are criminalized and our freedoms are eroded.” —Solidarity Pledge (2025)

In recent months JHISN members have attended meetings hosted at DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving) headquarters near Diversity Plaza. The monthly event is the newest program that the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean immigrant rights group has created to bring allies in to join their work. Each meeting is built on the important work DRUM has forged over 25 years—upcoming discussions will have participants talking about what kinds of meaningful collaborative work can be done locally by a group of allies. 

On April 18, the Elmhurst-based group Centro Corona hosted an event, open to the entire community, and shared the zine project they worked on in partnership with Red Canary Song (RCS):

“Despite organizing distinct communities, RCS and Centro Corona quickly learned we have common enemies, as well as a shared rage and grief about the injustice we experience in the world, and thus we are in deeply interlinked struggle.” —Bodies Not Borders zine (April 2025)

Over recent weeks, this collaborative approach has been seen at a larger scale through the massive national protests against the authoritarianism of the second Trump administration. JHISN walked next to DRUM and New York Communities for Change during Manhattan’s April 19 Earth Day March, where organizations fighting cuts in environmental protections marched with organizations confronting Trump’s anti-immigrant policies. The shared demands that day included:

  • ICE Out of New York. Stop collaborating with ICE and protect our immigrant communities. New York must remain a sanctuary for all.
  • New York Out of Fossil Fuels. Commit to a rapid, just transition to 100% renewable energy. No new fossil fuel infrastructure, and divest from fossil fuels now.
  • Release Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi and cease targeting student protesters.
  • Release Kilmar Abrego Garcia and cease the targeting of all immigrant communities regardless of status.

Prior to Earth Day, on April 5, the national march named HandsOff 50501 (50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement) gathered together tens of thousands of people protesting multiple issues including demands to Resist Fascism, Free Mahmoud Khalil, Takedown Tesla, Protest for Democracy, March for the Arts, and Dance for Democracy. The organizers provided printable signs for people to demand the Republicans take their hands off our bodies, civil rights, union contracts, veteran services, scientific research, immigrants, free speech, LGBTQ+ rights, and more, and more, and more. We saw this again at the 50501-supported May Day Strong rallies across the nation demanding “a world where every family has housing, healthcare, fair wages, union protection, and safety—regardless of race, zip code, or immigration status.” Our local immigration advocacy group Make The Road NY was a critical participant in the NYC May Day Strong rally in Foley Square, and DRUM also had a vibrant contingent in the march from Foley to Battery Park.

This intersection of groups with different concerns and interests joining together is crucial for building power and will be key to changing the social narrative about immigration and immigrants. The importance of coming together was highlighted just three days before Trump’s return to office when a cohort of immigrant rights groups launched the solidarity pledge. Those who already signed the pledge are currently working on another action for Friday, May 23, and building support with other groups to create the event. 

There are also plans for later this year, in November, when RaceForward will convene in St. Louis, Missouri. Their Just Narratives event will be the anchor to a Cultural Week of Action on Race and Democracy which includes elevating the voices of immigrants along with other groups. If they can do it in Missouri, and they can do it in Wisconsin, then in Jackson Heights we can definitely come together with local groups DRUM, Make the Road NY, Adhikaar, Centro Corona, NICE, Damayan, Asian Americans for Equality, Queens Neighborhood United, Voces Latinas, and Chhaya CDC to create our own intersectional action that combats the right-wing’s intersectionality of hate. You too can join groups together and Build the Resistance with us. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. At Rikers, a Battle for the Soul of the City

Rikers Island, our down-the-street neighbor, is a place where all the evils of New York City are concentrated. As City Council Member Tiffany Cabán declares, it is “a hellhole, a torture dungeon, a death chamber, a modern-day slave plantation, a site of relentless suffering and terror in every direction.” Perhaps it is fitting that Rikers is now the focus of a major struggle pitting New York as a sanctuary city against the Trump regime’s program of mass deportation.

It was Mayor Bloomberg who first approved the establishment of an ICE office at Rikers, in 2003. Although he often bragged about New York as a city of immigrants, Bloomberg was a supporter of the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), set up to deport immigrant arrestees. CAP claims to focus on immigrants with serious criminal backgrounds. But once embedded in jails and prisons, the program simply deports as many incarcerated immigrants as it can. The American Immigration Council notes: “DHS statistics show that a large percentage of immigrants apprehended under CAP are not criminals at all. An October 2009 DHS report found that 57 percent of immigrants identified through CAP in fiscal 2009 had no criminal convictions, up from 53 percent in fiscal 2008.”

At Rikers, The NY Post reports that “up to 15 agents worked closely with Department of Corrections staff, and could monitor inmates and issue detainer orders for [undocumented] immigrants on their radar.” As described by the ACLU, the results of CAP back then were devastating:

“Between 2004 and 2009, more than 13,000 inmates at Rikers Island were placed into deportation proceedings as a result of the Criminal Alien Program. According to numerous reports, inmates often don’t know that they are speaking with federal agents, understand that they could be placed into deportation proceedings as a result of the information they share, or realize that they may refuse to consent to an interview.”

A fierce 5-year campaign by the ICE Out of Rikers coalition, led by Make the Road New York, succeeded in convincing the City Council and Mayor de Blasio to limit ICE’s access to inmates, and ultimately to adopt legislation removing ICE from the island. Now, exactly ten years later, the Adams administration is trying to get ICE back in, using a legally questionable executive order. The carefully written order promises that ICE will not “engage in civil immigration enforcement” at Rikers—something explicitly forbidden by NYC sanctuary law—but will merely “assist” the Department of Correction in various “criminal investigations.”

The City Council quickly filed suit against the mayor’s executive order, charging that it is a transparent attempt to undermine the law by giving ICE access to information about immigrants’ status and location. They also allege that it is part of a “corrupt bargain” that Adams made with the Trump administration to get federal indictments against him dismissed. The Council notes that the mayor announced his plan to invite ICE to Rikers the same day he met with Trump’s border chief, Thomas Homan. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams remarked that “we are filing this lawsuit to halt his illegal order that he shamelessly previewed on the Fox News couch with Tom Homan.” Daniel Kornstein, attorney for the Council, promised to subpoena Homan to make him testify about the deal with Adams.

The Council”s lawsuit has kept ICE out of Rikers so far. At a hearing on April 25, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Mary Rosado issued a restraining order preventing any changes until a formal hearing can be scheduled to resolve the issue.

Homan and Mayor Adams surely know that the vast majority of those held in city jails are not there because they were convicted of a serious offense. For instance, as of Friday, April 27, out of 7,345 people incarcerated by NYC  (mostly at Rikers), fewer than 800 have been found guilty and are actually serving sentences. 5,362 inmates are in pretrial detention. It is a deep injustice that many of these people find themselves imprisoned for years under terrifying conditions simply because their families can’t afford bail.

Under current law, right or wrong, the city already cooperates with ICE to facilitate the deportation of undocumented immigrants convicted of “violent or serious felonies”—177 offenses in all. But hundreds of people are being held at Rikers on suspicion of illegal drug possession and other nonviolent offenses. Crucially, many current inmates will be found innocent. Yet for Eric Adams, “innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t apply to non-citizens. He thinks that simply being suspected of an offense makes a person automatically a criminal—especially if they are a working class immigrant.

“City law prohibits ICE from operating on Rikers for good reason. When ICE had access to the jail, they used it to surveil, intimidate, and conduct uncounseled interviews in an inherently coercive setting; allowing them to extract admissions about nationality and immigration status, and then using those statements to justify detention and deportation …. That is why New York City passed sanctuary laws—not to grant special privileges, but to impose basic legal protections of due process in a system that otherwise offers none.” —Bronx Defenders

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Consider donating to a bail fund to help people await trial with their families, in dignity.
  • Help the Bronx Defenders represent low-income people in the justice system. 

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

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JHISN Newsletter 04/05/2025

Posted on April 5, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Greetings in a time of emergency and resistance. Across the nation today and in all 50 states (including Bryant Park, Weehawken, and Staten Island) at 1:00 PM the people are demonstrating to demand: an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, women, workers, trans people, and other communities.

The breadth and speed of the Trump regime’s assault on immigrants has been stunning, but not unexpected. Starting immediately after the election, immigrant justice advocates began to regroup. They are looking for ways to draw community allies closer, filing defensive lawsuits, pushing for protective legislation, and conducting intensive “know your rights” campaigns. In our first article, we review the anti-immigrant steamroller of federal actions. In our second article, we look at state and local legislation proposed by local progressive politicians and prioritized by grassroots immigration activists. We conclude with a partial timeline of the deportation machine that is growing ever bolder.

Newsletter highlights
  1. The stunning number of attacks and deportations
  2. Pro-immigrant legislation working its way through our state legislature
  3. A timeline of disturbing deportation actions

1. 76 Days Later: The Cruelty and The Deprivation

“The second Trump administration began with a slew of executive orders designed to terrify and devastate immigrants, their families, and communities across the United States.”—National Immigration Law Center

After trying to make Americans fear immigrants as invaders, the Trump administration is now leveraging the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in the same way it was leveraged during World War II to round up US Citizens of Japanese descent, steal their homes and property, and imprison them in concentration camps. AI has been used to identify and revoke the visas of academics for their campus protests over Gaza. Long-time green card holders are suddenly losing legal status and facing deportation. The citizenship of people born in the US is being challenged, as is that of naturalized citizens.

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) states that “ALL people in the United States have rights, regardless of their immigration status.” The NIJC advises people to seek legal counsel. But law firms have capitulated to Trump’s unconstitutional lawfare threats to ban legal firms from access to government buildings, meetings or jobs. It is therefore no surprise that individuals and non-governmental organizations may also capitulate. Thus, the Quaker organization, American Friends Service Committee currently guides Venezuelans less about their rights to stay, and more on how people can mitigate the damage by securing a family’s legal power of attorney, managing financial protections, gathering official documents, and avoiding scams related to legal representation for when people are deported.

The White House press secretary makes the absurd argument that opposition to Homeland Security sending people with tattoos to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center equates to support for vicious gangs. But when the federal government’s deportation machine vanishes people, without orders of deportation, from the US to El Salvador, or Guantanamo, or from any US state to Louisiana’s remote and abusive ICE facilities, then the expectation of constitutional rights for anyone vanishes.

Recently Victoria Spartz, an immigrant Republican member of Congress from Indiana, actually stated in a public town hall: “You violated the law, you are not entitled to due process.” Yet the very purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to place “restraints on the government any time it detains (seizes) or searches a person” and the Fifth Amendment establishes no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Due process is reiterated in the 14th Amendment and all of these apply against the US government rather than being granted to individuals. 

Homeland Security admits that only 137 of the 238 people were deported to El Salvador as “enemy aliens”; so it deported 101 people to a brutal high-security prison in another country under “regular immigration procedures.” The Trump administration even paid El Salvador over $25,000 per person, for the year, to make them disappear. Their rationale is that it is cheaper than housing them in private prisons. Homeland Security will also not facilitate communications with any lawyers because these people have already been removed. 

There have been so many anti-immigration actions recently taken it is challenging to summarize them. The arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the first of many students arrested for their protest actions, suggests that the government is punishing and silencing free speech, or removing the privilege of one’s visa status based on ever-changing political opinions on foreign policy. It is vital to see these actions together, rather than as disjointed news articles. At the end of today’s newsletter we have compiled a partial timeline for you to read, in one place, the key actions reported on by various news sources…many of these sources Trump and his administration are seeking to delegitimize, defund or punish because they report facts instead of amplifying his talking points.   

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Join Amnesty International’s campaigns to release Mahmoud Khalil and tell Congress to stop the funding of mass deportations and inhumane border policies
  • Act along with the ACLU and demand elected leaders be vigilant and speak out against mass deportations and the president’s unlawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
  • Subscribe to a new immigration podcast Unsettled, and listen to the National Constitution Center discussion explaining how the recent use of The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 does not meet the requirements of wartime action it requires. 

2. Pro-Immigrant Reps Sponsor Protective Legislation

Fighting to stop the Trump regime’s anti-immigrant juggernaut requires resistance on many fronts. One of those is passing state and local legislation to protect immigrants from ICE abuses. New York voters have sent many progressives to the City Council and Albany. Now some of these politicians, including representatives from our neighborhood, are working with grassroots organizations on measures to prevent mass deportation and ensure due process.

One key piece of proposed legislation is the New York For All Act. This law would formalize a number of sanctuary provisions at the state level. It is strongly supported by Make the Road New York, which is using statehouse rallies and a phone call campaign to push it forward. As MTRNY describes it, the Act:

  • Would prohibit state and local officials from enforcing federal immigration laws or transferring people to ICE custody.
  • Block ICE and CBP from entering non-public areas of state and local property without a warrant.
  • Ensure that people in custody receive notice of their rights before being questioned by ICE.
  • Begin the process of restricting ICE and CBP access to state databases.

MTRNY specifically highlights the need to keep New York’s DMV database—which includes information on undocumented drivers—out of the hands of ICE.

On March 12, the New York City Council sent a message to the state legislature supporting the New York For All Act. During the same session, they also endorsed the Access to Representation Act, cosponsored by local Assemblyperson Catalina Cruz. This bill would “establish the right to legal counsel in immigration court proceedings.”

Cruz has been particularly active in generating pro-immigrant legislation. Her Protect Our Schools Act, co-sponsored by several other local lawmakers, is designed to prevent ICE from entering or making arrests in any state schools without a judicial warrant. Cruz presented this legislation as part of a trio of bills. The other two parts of her package include a law that targets rampant fraud by immigration “advisors,” and another guaranteeing proper translation of all immigration proceedings. The need for translation services and “language justice” is also reflected in a recent NY City Council decision to create a Language Access Bank, and to fund the translation work of local immigrant organizations.

Cruz and other Queens-based legislators are also among the 54 sponsors of the Dignity Not Detention Act. As we reported previously, this proposed law “prohibits governmental entities from entering into agreements to house individuals in immigration detention facilities; requires governmental entities to terminate existing contracts for the detention of individuals in immigration detention facilities.” It is supported by a wide range of immigrant justice and civil rights groups.

Legislation can be an important weapon to defend immigrants. But its success depends on the strength of progressive sentiment: first of all in electing pro-immigrant representatives, and then in backing them up to get just laws passed. It remains to be seen how New Yorkers, including Governor Hochul, respond to recently proposed progressive legislation in the face of the current wave of xenophobia.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Participate in Make the Road’s phone-in for the New York for All Act.
  • Learn about the Language Justice Collaborative, which trains and provides interpreters for African, Asian and Latin American immigrants.

3. A Partial Timeline Of Deportations And Actions

Jan 20 – As promised on day one of being a dictator, Trump signed blatantly unconstitutional paperwork to eliminate the 14th Amendment right to birthright citizenship by executive order and began to eviscerate due process in the immigration system. He also began the process of weaponizing the military against immigrants.

Jan 21 – Alfredo Orellana, a green card holder married to a 6 months pregnant US citizen, was detained after returning from a trip to El Salvador. Originally born in Argentina 31 years ago, Orellana has lived in the US since he was 4 years old.

Jan 25 – German tourists entering the US on valid travel documents were held in ICE detention for 46 days and then deported.

Jan 31 – US Citizen Julio Noriega was swept up in warrantless arrests by ICE in Chicago and given no opportunity to discuss his citizenship. He was released, after being held by Homeland Security for 10 hours, with no money and no paperwork to explain the reason for being held or released.

Feb 1 – TPS was suddenly suspended for 472,000 Venezuelans. Under Biden, the end date had been extended to October 2026. It was shortened to April 7, 2025 which Homeland Security would use to justify their deportation in weeks. A federal judge later halted the suspension pending court hearings.

Feb 4 – A 10-year-old US Citizen with brain cancer was deported from Texas to Mexico with her entire family while they were driving to a medical checkup in Houston from border town Rio Grande City. Other than lacking “valid immigration status in the U.S.,” the parents have “no criminal history,” and they have been deported to a region known for kidnapping US citizens. Heritage Foundation fellow and Project 2025 contributor, Tom Homan, who is not a Cabinet member but wields control over immigration policy with the official title of Border Czar, is known to have cold disregard for the US citizenship of 4 million children who have an undocumented parent. He stated that the parents will decide when to break up a family, not the government.

Feb 7 – Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem directed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to deputize IRS criminal investigators, to “assist in immigration enforcement”. Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell rejected the plan for the IRS to share the addresses of the people in their databases. Three weeks later the 40-year veteran of the IRS, O’Donnell, retired. His replacement, Melanie Krause, is willing to accept the plan to allow the Department of Government Efficiency known as DOGE (most accurately pronounced “dodgy”) access to the address data. Many point out this situation contradicts Trump’s typical narrative that the immigrants he attacks as illegal are a social burden and don’t pay taxes.

Feb 14 – Using a law from WWII, Kristi Noem announced the plan to create a Migrant Registry and require those who are undocumented to come forward or face criminal penalties.

Feb 15 – Camila Muñoz was detained by an immigration agent when she and her Trump-voting husband returned from their honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Her unlawful action was letting her immigration paperwork expire during COVID when she was not allowed to travel. The husband blames the system, not Trump. But within a month he was considering moving back with her to Peru.

Feb 19 – German tourist Lucas Sielaf, and his US Citizen fiancée were held by ICE for two weeks after going to a vet in Mexico.

Feb 20 – Secretary Noem suddenly amended the period of extension and redesignation of Haiti for TPS from 18 months to 12 months. The new end date is August 3, 2025 which Homeland Security would use to justify their deportation.

Feb 25 – While tearing down all rights related to immigration, Trump announces that wealthy immigrants will soon be eligible to purchase a gold card path to citizenship for $5 million. Unlike the EB-5 entrepreneurship visa that requires people to invest in a business over time in the United States, this gold card requires only one payment and will be open to Russian oligarchs who Trump said “are very nice people”.

Feb 26 – Becky Burke, a 28-year-old backpacker from Wales, UK, was held in chains after crossing into the US from Canada; possibly due to the agent’s opinion that the free housing she received was considered payment in return for her helping them with housework. 

Feb 28 – Lewelyn Dixon, a 50-year resident and green card holder, was held in ICE detention in Tacoma when returning from a trip to the Philippines. Her family did not know until March 2 and were not informed why she was being held. She is currently scheduled for a hearing in July.

Mar 6 – Ma Yang, from Milwaukee, is 37 and has lived in the US since she was 8 months old: in mid-February she was detained during a regular US Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in meeting, separated from her US citizen partner and children, then deported to Laos. Born in Thailand, Laos is a country she has never even visited. 

Mar 7 – A German mother and son, both with permanent residence status, were held at Logan airport with no explanation as to what had flagged the son’s green card. The son had to be hospitalized after release because he had been “deprived of sleep, food and water, and had his anxiety medication withheld.” while he was held.

Mar 8 – Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident and recent graduate of Columbia University, was the first of known student protesters of the Gaza conflict to be taken by Homeland Security agents. His 8-month pregnant US citizen wife was also threatened with arrest. After being transferred to ICE custody in Louisiana, he was flown closer to home to a New Jersey detention center at the demand of a federal judge.  [Correction: Khalil was not flown to NJ; a judge transferred his case to NJ at the request of his lawyers, and some of his hearings are being held in NJ as he remains caged in Louisiana and appears remotely]. Trump demanded the compliance of all universities and said “This is the first arrest of many to come.” [Update: On April 11 a judge ruled that Khalil can be deported, but due process is required as the United States government must successfully argue their preposterous case that his presence posed potentially serious foreign policy consequences.”]

Mar 10 – A Venezuelan couple, with Temporary Protective Status (TPS) and valid work authorization, were grabbed by Border Patrol in Washington, DC and separated from their three children. A judge said their arrest was “baseless and unlawful” and the Border Patrol’s assistant commissioner of public affairs, Hilton Beckham, alleged, “without evidence, that the couple had ties to the Tren de Aragua gang”. Megan McFadden, an attorney for the federal government, admitted she had not heard the couple had valid TPS paperwork.

Mar 11 – Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, was concerned about being detained illegally, with no criminal charges after her visa was revoked. Srinivasan is another student who has shown support for Palestine throughout Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. The university did not prevent ICE agents from accessing university housing without a judicial warrant and she chose to fly to Canada.

Mar 14 – Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school, was denied entry at Boston Logan International Airport on a Thursday. The day after her airport detention, US District Judge Leo Sorokin (who was the fourth federal judge to block the attack on birthright citizenship) set a hearing for the following Monday. The hearing was canceled after she was deported to Paris under suspicion of support for Hezbollah.

Mar 14 – The visa of Momodou Taal, a graduate student at Cornell University, was revoked. The United Electrical union supports him because, if the federal government is allowed to come for Taal, they will be emboldened to come for anyone who challenges climate policies, stands for the rights of women and LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, and workers’ rights.

Mar 14 – Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, chose to self-deport using the redesigned CBP Home App after Homeland Security revoked her visa on Mar 5. [Correction: Ranjani Srinivasan, a Columbia University student from India, did not self-deport using the CBP app: that claim was official propaganda disinformation on ex-twitter from Kristi Noem. On March 14, Srinivasan’s lawyer’s informed ICE she had left the country three days earlier.]

Mar 15 – Homeland Security ignored a judicial ruling requiring planes, headed to El Salvador with over 200 deportees, to return to the US. A video was released showing their delivery to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, whose president mocked the order by posting on social media, “Oopsie…Too Late,” The US paid El Salvador $6 million to take them for a year and provided no proof these people were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Trump then floated the idea of sending US Citizens to prisons outside the country.

Mar 17 – Jeanette Vizguerra, an immigrant rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee in California, evaded deportation in 2017 by seeking sanctuary by living in the basement of a church with her children. She was taken into custody near the Target store where she worked.

Mar 17 – Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University was detained by masked federal agents outside his home. Suri’s lawyer stated Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his US citizen wife because the government suspects they both oppose US foreign policy toward Israel.

Mar 18 – Using false narratives about immigrants increasing crime resulted in an ICE raid in Boston that rounded up 370 people, many of whom were legally in the US and going through the asylum process.

Mar 24 – Yunseo Chung, another permanent resident student at Columbia University, files a lawsuit against members of the federal government for their action against her, claiming “She is being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws” for engaging in what they claimed as concerning conduct in a pro-Hamas protest at Barnard College. Chung’s suit states this is a “larger pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech”.

Mar 25 – Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian Graduate student at the University of Alabama, had his visa suddenly revoked and at 3 a.m. agents took him into custody and removed him to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana which is holding several international students targeted by Homeland Security. Fortunately, his finacée was able to share his story and people mobilized to help support his legal defense.

Mar 25. – Rumeysa Ozturk, a Massachusetts graduate student at Tufts University, had her visa suddenly terminated and she was grabbed off the street and taken into federal custody by masked agents who are not clearly law enforcement. She had co-authored an essay in the student newspaper demanding that Tufts acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.

Mar 27 – ICE executed an arrest on a farm in Sackets Harbor, New York, the hometown of Border Czar Tom Homan. Agents entered a different home on the property, without a judicial warrant, detained a mother and her three children, and moved them to a detention center in Texas. Homan claims they were moved for safety as potential witnesses to crime. NY Governor Kathy Hochul stated, “I want this family returned to New York state and believe ICE needs to immediately answer for these actions.”

Mar 31 – Seventeen more alleged gang members were flown to the El Salvador high-security prison. To avoid directly challenging the judicial ruling to prevent such deportations, the administration did not leverage the Alien Enemies Act. 

Mar 31 – Robert Cerna, the Acting Field Office Director for ICE filed a declaration admitting that an administrative error sent at least one person, Kilmar Abergo Garcia, to the supermax prison in El Salvador. Despite the wrongful deportation, Homeland Security says they will not facilitate his return because they have no jurisdiction since he is no longer in US custody. Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, defended the action and continued to state that this person was a convicted gang member – but provided no proof to back up that claim. 

Apr 4 – A federal judge ruled that Kilmar Abergo Garcia must be returned from El Salvador by Monday because of the Trump administration’s illegal action deporting him. In response, the White House deputy chief of staff called the judge a Marxist and the White House press secretary suggested the judge contact the El Salvador president because the US no longer has jurisdiction.  

In Solidarity,
JHISN

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 03/08/2025

Posted on March 8, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

As a smothering blanket of white nationalism and authoritarianism descends over the US, sanctuary cities are a crucial line of defense against the regime’s plans for mass deportation. In our last newsletter, we saw that many US cities are reaffirming their sanctuary city status in defiance of ICE threats. Today’s newsletter adopts the definition of “sanctuary city” as “a collection of policies and political will” and discusses Mayor Adams’ corrupt betrayal of NYC’s promise of sanctuary.

Our second article introduces you to TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse). We explain how this unique and valuable tool has provided public access to data from various federal government agencies and explore its current transformation.

 

1. Adams Attack on Sanctuary Causes Fear and Confusion

“I think Mayor Adams does not know his own city or does not care to know his own city. The people who pay taxes in his city. The people who go out and shop every morning. The people who are up at 4 a.m. driving deliveries. Those are the people who run this city and are being served up on a silver platter for President Trump.” –Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Street Vendor Project

The term “sanctuary” evokes mental images of families sheltering from ICE in church basements or private homes. For instance, during the first Trump administration, Aura Hernandez and her children, fleeing violence in Guatemala, lived inside the Fourth Universalist Society in Manhattan for almost a year, successfully holding off ICE attempts to deport them. Today, churches are quietly discussing their options for similar actions. 

But what is a “sanctuary city”? After all, we can’t put walls around NYC. As a November article in The City explains, “‘sanctuary city’ isn’t really a hard-and-fast legal edict. It’s more of a collection of policies, combined with political will, that guide how local and federal authorities [such as ICE] interact.” 

In practice, this includes guaranteeing legal rights and access to public services for all residents, whatever their immigration status. It often involves outlawing immigrant detention centers. Of critical importance today, it usually means refusing to help ICE deport people in city facilities like schools, jails, courts, and hospitals unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. 

But in NYC, both political will and policies are under attack from right-wing forces and the Adams administration. While undocumented immigrants were hailed as heroic “essential workers” only a few years ago, they are now endangered because of a failure of solidarity, manufactured confusion, and the mayor’s craven and self-serving accommodation with the Trump regime’s plan for mass deportation.

Adams has claimed on many occasions that he upholds New York’s sanctuary city status. But since Trump’s reelection, the mayor has turned sanctuary into a bargaining chip, cynically offering up the city’s 400,000 undocumented immigrants as a potential sacrifice to get himself out from under federal corruption charges. In December, he declared, falsely, that immigrants accused of crimes were not eligible for due process under the Constitution. He floated the idea of using executive orders to get around current sanctuary laws and help ICE arrest more immigrants. 

On February 10, a federal Justice Department memo announced that serious criminal charges against Adams would be suspended—not because they lacked merit, but because they might supposedly interfere with Adams’ ability to fight crime and “illegal immigration.” On February 14, Adams and Trump “border czar” Tom Homan appeared on “Fox and Friends” to celebrate their new collaboration. A visibly perspiring Adams, laughing nervously, told Homan, “I want ICE to deliver.” Homan, for his part, told the Fox audience that “If he [Adams] doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch, I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is this agreement we came to?”

During a partisan Capitol Hill hearing designed to attack sanctuary city mayors earlier this week, anti-immigrant Republicans treated Adams with kid gloves. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer even praised him for his willingness to work with ICE. It was Democrats who challenged Adams, denouncing his collaboration with Homan. 

Even before Trump’s February 16th executive order to open up sensitive areas like churches and schools to deportation raids, the Adams administration was pushing city agencies to loosen sanctuary city protections and to cooperate with ICE. Instead of instructing city employees to follow sanctuary policy, keeping ICE out unless they showed a legal warrant, Adams directed that “if you reasonably feel threatened or fear for your safety, you should give the officer the information they have asked for or let them enter the site.” This is widely viewed as undermining the intent of sanctuary city legislation. Since then, the mayor has promised to “coordinate” with ICE on deportations.

Immigrant advocates are proactively organizing on several fronts against what they see as an ominous weakening of the spirit and letter of sanctuary city provisions. On February 6, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and other Democrats held a news conference outside Kings County Hospital to protest a memo from NYC Health + Hospitals that warned workers not to help patients avoid ICE. Other hospitals have circulated similar memos, causing widespread controversy and anxiety among patients, employees and immigrant communities.

Immigration activists are also trying to stop the reopening of an ICE outpost at Rikers Island, which was closed down in 2015 as a result of sanctuary city legislation. The ICE facility was using fingerprints and other jail data to deport many prisoners awaiting trial. This kind of synergy between prison systems and ICE contributed to a surge of deportations under the Obama administration. Adams now hopes to use an “executive order” of dubious legality to restore the Rikers ICE station. 

On February 9, in the wake of reports that immigrant families are keeping their children home due to worries about ICE in the schools, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos released a video to reassure parents. “As always, non-local law enforcement is not permitted in any of our school buildings without a judicial warrant or unless there are exigent circumstances,” she said. However, given Adams’ support for ICE, Make The Road Action’s Manuel Ordonez found Aviles-Ramon’s words less than comforting. “It’s impossible that my community is going through this difficult time, that they can’t even go to church, they can’t take their kids to school, they can’t shop at supermarkets because of fear of being arrested and deported.”

To the best of our knowledge, mass ICE raids have not yet occurred in NYC schools, hospitals, courthouses or churches. But activists are concerned that Adams is helping Trump to lay the groundwork: criminalizing immigrants, cheerleading ICE, releasing memos and executive orders that challenge sanctuary laws, and generally stoking fear. “This mayor has been running amok in this city for too long, all for his own self interest,” says Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. “He’s enabling Trump’s mass deportation machine by sowing confusion.”

What Can We Do?

2. The Return of Vital Immigration Data

On January 8, 2025, a critical and unique reporting tool, which JHISN has often used for reliable data reports about US immigration, abruptly went silent. The esoterically named Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) was established in 1989 by Susan Long and the late David Burnham. As Director of the Center for Tax Studies at Syracuse University (SU), Susan had leveraged the 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gather Internal Revenue Service data for her work and dissertation. David was an investigative reporter of some renown. She was into numbers, and he was into words. They both advocated for public access to information and so, together, established TRAC with its purpose of “providing the American people with comprehensive information about staffing, spending, and enforcement activities of the federal government.” 

David and Sue created a FOIA model for gathering data from non-cooperative federal organizations that would simply claim they did not have the information to share. Their TRAC process begins with a FOIA demand for available metadata about the topic of their research. After analysing the documents from that demand, they initiate further FOIA requests for the data disclosed by the initial metadata. The final step of their process uses data analysis to produce validated reports for general consumption. This makes it possible for us to discover, for example, that at this same time last year, over 600 people at the Genesse detention facility in New York state had been detained by ICE for one to two years.

50% of TRAC staff time is spent on FOIA requests, and each request is lengthy. A recent settlement for immigration data took 20 years. They currently have three FOIA lawsuits against ICE, initiated in 2010. ICE challenged those requests by simply asserting that the immigration data was exempt from disclosure. The courts ruled in TRAC’s favor. This FOIA work is conducted by pro-bono lawyers, often from the Public Citizen Legislation Group, a public interest law firm litigating cases at all levels of the federal and state judiciaries. The work of Public Citizen primarily involves consumer health & safety and consumer financial protection, overseen by the federal agencies that Elon Musk’s Dept of Government Efficiency recently decimated based on the recommendation of Project 2025.

Over the past 35 years, TRAC has produced a huge trove of data describing US immigration, Judges, and the federal agencies of the ATF, DEA, FBI, and the IRS. They also have a TracPlus report revealing data about civil rights, Social Security, and the environment. Perhaps surprisingly, Federal organizations have relied on TRAC reporting data for internal use. They do this through a subscription model that allows organizations, news media, and lawyers to access the data compilations. The Federal Reserve board once held a subscription because the TRAC reporting was more accessible than any internal systems. Immigration departments also have subscriptions because they have to give criminal enforcement data to prosecutors, and TRAC provides that data. 

Sue points out that, although organizations may use TRAC data to assist in policy advocacy, TRAC itself is NOT a policy group: TRAC is focused on data availability. Since 1999, SU had hosted the TRAC database and reports on its website. Developing a new website with a better user experience was something Sue and David had been discussing over the last decade. However, the transition to the new tracreports.org site was fast-tracked in January. According to The Houston Chronicle, there had been a “sometimes testy internal [university] dispute” over the last two years, resulting in the recent deletion of the entire TRAC archive from the SU website. ⁠The university maintains there has been no external pressure to take down the TRAC site, however, the removal came at an inopportune time, just as the anti-immigrant Trump administration was about to return to power. 

The new website TRAC launched last month allows them to provide more effective access to data. For example, their new Quick Facts on Immigration reveals that over 50% of those held in ICE detention have no criminal record. They are still working to reestablish access to ALL the data that once lived on the SU website, but are currently prioritizing the release of key information. 

In addition to immigration data reporting, the TRAC website includes access to a substantial and always growing Reference Library of Government Studies on Immigration. The team has also been sending data to people who made specific requests for information that is not yet back online. In fact, the TRAC team had no sense of how broadly their data was in use until they started receiving emails from around the world, including from JHISN, asking what happened and if and when the website would be back online. 

Before 2015, the work of TRAC had been recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as the FOIA Project. Since that time, David and Susan had discussed how the TRAC system could continue after they are no longer around, a question that has gained urgency following David’s passing last year. They had established TRAC as a non-profit organization so that it, not they, and not SU, owned the data. They have seen thriving non-profits fail after the founding leader retired, and they both knew that the co-directorship that worked so well for them may not be the way for future leadership. Sue is certain that much of TRAC’s future will rely on volunteer support, and she is actively seeking and inviting discussion from others with solid ideas as to what the next stage in TRAC’s life will look like and determining how that future can be led.

What Can We Do?

 

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 02/08/2025

Posted on February 8, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

As we come to the end of another tumultuous week of the new administration, we offer you a ray of hope with a link to two extraordinary examples of determination and resilience in the documentary Borderland: The Line Within. For a small fee you can follow the experiences of Gabriela, a DACA recipient from Mexico, and Kaxh, a Mayan environmental activist and asylum seeker from Guatemala, as the film exposes the extent of the Border Industrial Complex. 

We also join in congratulating Make the Road New York on the opening of its newest community center this week in Corona, Queens. A ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by electeds and community members was held on Wednesday for the nearly $40 million project launched in 2016. 

Today’s newsletter offers a wide-ranging look at how US cities are reaffirming their sanctuary city status in defiance of ICE threats. While NYC is not yet at the forefront of cities taking a stand, that battle is not over.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Sanctuary under siege: A nationwide look at how cities fight back

1. Sanctuary Cities Protect People And Do Not Violate Federal Law

“Is it really true that if federal immigration authorities ‘command’ or ‘request’ that state officers participate in immigration enforcement, they could be prosecuted for refusing to comply? The answer is ‘no,’  and the law on the subject is quite clear.”—Just Security (01.23.25)

While the made-for-TV spectacle circulates of Dr. Phil joining an immigration raid in Chicago with ICE enforcers, a Congressional bill has been introduced that is also politically performative: it attempts to define a sanctuary jurisdiction, then makes such jurisdictions ineligible for federal funds. The funds identified for vindictive removal in this proposed bill are earmarked as being “for the benefit” of undocumented immigrants but, as the National Immigration Law Center notes: it is impossible to separate those funds from those that also benefit citizens. The bill therefore threatens funding for free school lunches, domestic violence shelters, all transportation projects, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding. The new administration is making belligerent and unconstitutional threats against sanctuary jurisdictions in an attempt to bully them into abandoning the rights of the people living there. Many are standing up against the threats, while others may try to appease or benefit from Trump’s  ‘transactional’ power plays. 

James Comer (R-Kentucky), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, recently sent letters to the Mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver, and NYC requesting documentation from each about their sanctuary policies.  Why were these cities chosen? The Mayor of Denver said he would go to jail to protect people who are undocumented; the Boston City Council recently reaffirmed its sanctuary in the Boston Trust Act; Chicago recently reaffirmed its ordinance, The Welcoming City; and New York State and City have various sanctuary provisions. 

The online forum, Just Security, explains why these new demands are legally void, as were the January letter threats from Steven Miller’s America First Legal that warned of “serious consequences” over sanctuary policies. Sirine Shebaya of the National Immigration Project (NIP) concurs: “Letters like these are really more about sowing fear than they are about articulating anything that would hold up from a legal standpoint.” The NIP also published a document outlining how Sanctuary Policies Do Not Violate Federal Law. These arguments against sanctuary policies have had their day in the courts before and have lost. States can decline to help federal ICE agents because, under the Tenth Amendment, states retain police power within their own borders. They can also pursue legal remedies, support the rights of their residents to protest, and allocate funds for immigrant defense—as many did with the first Trump administration. Even the conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia held that the framers intended states to have a “residuary and inviolable sovereignty” that barred the federal government from “impress[ing] into its service…the police officers of the 50 States.” 

Republican-led cities have also expressed concern about clear responsibilities in this sweeping approach to immigration enforcement. “We understand this uncertainty creates concerns and fear,” said Oklahoma Mayor Jean Stothert, a Republican running for a fourth term, adding “Enforcing immigration law is a responsibility of federal law enforcement agencies, not the Omaha Police Department.” Indeed, the reason that Trump wants to force local police to do his will is because the 6,000 deportation officers are insufficient to handle the quota he set of 1,500 daily immigrant arrests. He needs the 800,000 law enforcement officers of the 50 states to do his bidding. So local resistance becomes crucial.

In Illinois, several Chicago community-based organizations—Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Organized Communities Against Deportations, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Inc., and Raise the Floor Alliance—have sued the federal government over the mass deportation raids as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and their First Amendment rights. They point out that Florida and Texas are not subjected to the same enforcement, even though they have three times as many undocumented immigrants compared to Illinois. 

In California, in addition to San Francisco and Los Angeles city councils unanimously approving their sanctuary city policy, people gathered outside Alameda City Hall to show there is support for their existing sanctuary city status. Further South in National City hundreds of protesters gathered to voice opposition to the Trump Administration’s immigration policies and raids. The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd. Much further North in Yakima, WA, a rally in opposition to the national raids also took place, and local law enforcement agencies assured residents they would not be participating in any immigration raids. 

So what of New York City? NYC Public Schools prepared staff for ICE run-ins: reminding principals that enforcement officers must have proper legal authority to access school grounds; and noting that all children have a right to education regardless of immigration status. The New York Immigration Coalition published Getting the Facts Straight on Sanctuary Cities. And Manuel Castro, New York’s commissioner of migrant affairs, has vowed not to follow “the instructions of the federal government in cases of mass deportations.” 

On the other hand, NYC Mayor Adams is so far taking a conciliatory approach to Trump’s anti-immigrant actions, possibly because he is facing federal corruption charges that the notoriously transactional president could pardon. Instead of standing strong in support of New York City’s sanctuary policies, Adams said, “The American people have communicated with us loudly and clearly: We have a broken system. They want it fixed. We need to fix our immigration system. We need to secure our border”. He added: “I’m not going to be warring with this administration. I’m going to be working with this administration.” 

As truthout, a member of the important Movement Media Alliance, reported:

“A bully will hit you and then tell you that you made them hit you. Local elected officials and communities must not give in to Trump’s bullying and obey in advance, which will only set a dangerous precedent and groundwork for targeting and persecution of organizers, lawyers, advocates, and others working to protect immigrant communities.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Join the Vera Institute of Justice in pushing NY State elected officials to protect immigrant New Yorkers by passing the New York for All Act, Dignity Not Detention Act, Access to Representation Act, and Clemency Justice Act.
  • Circulate United We Dream’s resources, including Know Your Rights information sheets.
  • Check out the TV show ‘Mo’ about an asylum-seeking Palestinian family living in Texas – this fictionalized account shows the humanity of the people that Trump wants to deport.
  • Be healthy and support immigrants by signing up for the Immigrants Run NYC, For The Love of Queens, 5k run in Flushing Meadows Park on February 15. Queens Distance Runners are donating 50% of the registration fees to NICE.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 01/11/2025

Posted on January 11, 2025 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

‘Happy New Year. You’re Deported’ was published by The Nation at the end of the year…in 2015…during the second term of the Obama presidency. Horrific, unacceptable, and unconscionable were key words the article used to describe Homeland Security’s plan to begin raids to deport families. Our first article for this new year 2025 looks at the ongoing state-sanctioned deportation threats to immigrant families and communities which promise to be significantly more aggressive than before. Just like a decade ago, our New York immigrant justice organizations today stand against the inhumanity of these policies. Even as our Mayor and Governor both talk about walking back our sanctuary policies and allowing more cooperation with ICE agents, hundreds of people rallied this past week at the state capitol in Albany demanding expanded legal protections for immigrant New Yorkers. 

Government intimidation will not stop the political, social, and community struggles of immigrant-led organizations and justice campaigns. We will, in fact, see community support strengthened this year when Make the Road NY holds a February ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new landmark center in Corona. Our second article spotlights Make the Road’s Deportation Defense Manual and practical guidance for community safety in 2025. 

Newsletter highlights:
  1. A look at deportation threats–and protections–in NYC
  2. Make the Road NY’s blueprint for deportation defense

 

 

1. Cruel Futures—Deportation @NewYork

“By pledging to carry out the largest mass deportation in history, Trump isn’t just targeting immigrant communities, he’s attacking the very fabric of the country … Trump is creating a future where millions of families will live in constant fear of being torn apart, and where entire communities and economic sectors will be destabilized.” —Murad Awawdeh, director, NY Immigration Coalition (12/8/24) 

The destabilization promised by Trump and his anti-immigrant minions holds a special threat to New York State, where 4.5 million immigrant residents are at risk of having families, lives, and communities overturned by a mass deportation agenda. New York City is home to an estimated 412,000 of the state’s 672,000+ undocumented people, all of whom stand in the crosshairs of an incoming administration that aims for cruelty and racist scapegoating as a livestream political bloodsport.

Nearly half of NYC’s small businesses are run by immigrants, including undocumented owners (an estimated 60,500 undocumented entrepreneurs live in NY state). Close to 310,000 undocumented workers compose 7% of the city’s labor force. Undocumented workers in New York State pay about $3 billion in state and local taxes. Many immigrant households in our neighborhood are ‘mixed status’ with members living together who have both legal and unprotected immigration status—including over 351,000 citizen children statewide who live with an undocumented family member. Trump has announced he wants to make even more people ‘undocumented’ by stripping away time-limited legal protections like Temporary Protective Status (TPS), DACA, and humanitarian parole, which would expose thousands more people in Central Queens to deportation threats.

Assessments abound regarding what Trump 2.0 can really do, what they will really do, and how quickly. In recent US history, the vast majority of removals and detentions took place at the US-Mexico border. Deporting undocumented immigrants from New York City would require interior arrests and detentions, actions limited, in theory, by complex legal procedures and choked by overwhelmed immigration courts. But ‘expedited removal’ protocols—which Trump tried to ramp up during his first administration—would allow federal officials to remove anyone who cannot prove they are in the US lawfully, or that they have resided physically in the country for two years or more.

New York City is not without some protections, for now, against deportation frenzy. One of over 170 US cities that has established sanctuary policies, NYC since 1989 has created legal safe zones for immigrants threatened by federal overreach. In 2014 and 2018 under Mayor de Blasio, sanctuary laws were strengthened to preclude local cooperation with ICE’s ‘detainer requests’ (with exceptions for people convicted of serious crimes), and to mandate advance review by senior city officials of any request for help from federal immigration agents that might lead to deportation. In fiscal year 2022-23, the NYPD granted exactly zero of ICE’s requests to hold someone in custody for them. But attempts at the state level to expand immigrant protections have stalled, including the ambitious New York For All Act which has never gotten out of committee. And Mayor Adams has recently threatened to change the city’s existing sanctuary laws to facilitate cooperation with ICE and federal deportation.

As we speak, the city is also closing down the vast tent city at Floyd Bennett Field in southern Brooklyn, built to serve as a family shelter for recent migrants. The closure is due in part to a steady decline in the number of migrants arriving in NYC and being housed in city shelters, a 17% drop from 69,000 migrants in January 2024 to 57,400 in December. Local immigrant justice groups and the mutual aid group Floyd Bennett Field Neighbors also fought for the closure just before Trump’s inauguration: the tent shelter was built on federal land, and advocates feared the new administration could repurpose the shelter as an immigrant detention center.

Finally, the vulnerability of thousands of recently-arrived migrants in NYC to mass deportation is mitigated by the fact that the majority of new migrants are asylum seekers. Though referred to as “illegals” by Trump, and often presumed undocumented, many recent migrants are actually at the start of the years-long asylum process. They exist in a legal border zone, constructed precisely to protect asylum seekers from deportation during the proceedings.

Will legal border zones mean anything in the coming years? Will laws be blown up, and emergency states of exception proliferate? That uncertainty triggers everyone’s worst nightmares. As Murad Awawdeh of NY Immigration Coalition says: “We can’t allow this vision of cruelty, exclusion, and fear to become our reality.”  

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Support the New York For All Act which prohibits state and local resources from being used to enact inhumane federal deportation agendas.
  • Support the Dignity Not Detention Act which prevents NYS from entering in, or renewing, contracts for immigrant detention centers. Similar bills have passed in NJ, CA, WA, and IL. Sign on with your organization’s support for the bill.
  • Support the Access to Representation Act which guarantees the right to counsel for anyone, regardless of income, who comes before a New York immigration court, including in deportation hearings.  

2. Preparing for Trump’s Deportation Plans

“I think [Queens], in many ways, ends up being the kind of epicenter for the fights. I think a lot of the work that we’re going to have to do over the next four years, whether it’s deportation defense or education within the community, is going to be centered in our borough.”–Jagpreet Singh, organizer with Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) 

In the first weeks of 2025, our undocumented friends and neighbors are dreading the onset of Trump’s deportation plans. Many of the immigrant justice organizations are on high alert. Both DRUM and Make the Road NY say they have been preparing for the incoming presidential administration:

“Throughout this year, we’ve been preparing our community for this. We’ve been preparing basically this entire year. I think we’re in a better spot than we would have been if this was unexpected.” —Jagpreet Singh, organizer with DRUM  

 “It is a very dark time when New York City, which has always thought of itself as a sanctuary space, that our mayor would even willingly meet with this new border czar. It sets a tone that New York City is not for immigrants, and it puts a target on the back of immigrants.”—Luba Cortes, immigration lead organizer, Make the Road New York 

Make the Road NY, with the help of the Immigrant Defense Project, has created one of the most comprehensive preparedness resources: the Deportation Defense Manual. MTRNY’s website also offers current resources and downloadable flyers, including their recent Stay Safe! How to Protect Yourself in a Trump Administration.

The Defense Manual, available in Spanish and English, has three major parts and several useful appendixes. Part 1: Know Your Rights provides details for dealing with ICE at home, on the street, while driving, or at work. The main message from Part 1 is to not open the door unless ICE shows you a judicial warrant (sample on p. 19). Be calm and remain silent. You do not have to say anything or provide any information. (Your 4th and 5th Amendment rights should protect you from incriminating yourself and/or unlawful search and seizure.) You can say “I want to exercise my right to remain silent.” and “I do not consent to a search.” Ask for an interpreter. Ask to talk to an immigration attorney before signing anything. If you see someone being detained, take photos and write down all the information about the encounter. (Appendix D has a form to use.) Call the Immigrant Defense Project help line (212-725-6422).  Part I ends with extremely important guidance for how to protect your children by creating a plan now, and Appendix C has a comprehensive family preparedness checklist.

Part 2: Rapid Response to Raids provides information needed to support someone or a family after an ICE raid. What information do you need to have about the detained loved one? How to find a lawyer, and how to visit someone in detention? (pp. 28-31).

Part 3: Deportation Defense lists strategies to organize support for an individual who has been detained. How to organize the community to support a detained person? How to create a fundraising campaign or put pressure on government agencies? (pp. 42-44 and Appendix F).

Finally, Appendix G has multiple copyable flyers with rights information to distribute.

WHAT WE CAN DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 12/14/2024

Posted on December 14, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

 As New York City sits on the precipice of the largest mass deportation in US history as threatened by Trump, the city’s Mayor—indicted under federal charges of corruption and abuse of power—sat down this week with incoming “border czar” Tom Homan. Discussion topic: Adams’ cooperation with the feds’ deportation plans. Already on record saying, “I’m not going to be warring with this administration, I’m going to be working with this administration,” Mayor Adams declared after the meeting that he will consider using executive power to change the city’s sanctuary laws to expedite deportations. Homan declared that the meeting “went great.” 

Immigrant justice activists, including Make the Road NY and Adhikaar, rallied outside City Hall during the Adams-Homan meeting to oppose our city’s collaboration with Trump’s promised spectacle of punishment, caging, and exile.

JHISN will continue to highlight, and fight for, immigrant justice struggles as the enemies of justice gather power and popular support. This week’s newsletter reports again on the draconian Operation Restore Roosevelt and its militarized presence in our neighborhood. We then look at how national immigrant advocacy organizations are stepping up in the face of the incoming administration’s anti-immigrant violence and scapegoating.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Roosevelt Avenue: new home for NYPD and NY state troopers
  2. Immigrant advocates gear up for the struggle

1. Political Fault Line on Roosevelt Ave.

Roosevelt  Avenue, along with its plazas, has long been known for its vibrant street life. It’s a microcosm of working-class New York: a human tapestry of immigrant vendors from all over the world, creating an ever-changing, 24-hour open-air market and food destination in the shadow of the elevated 7 train. Today, the Avenue is mostly blank concrete and asphalt. And cops, hundreds of cops. Cops hassling street vendors and sex workers. Cops supervising the bulk seizure of unregistered e-bikes and mopeds. Cops just standing around, in pairs and groups, owning the street.

Answer Triangle, Roosevelt Avenue, May 2024

 

Answer Triangle, December 2024

This new, dreary, police state version of Roosevelt Avenue comes to us courtesy of Operation Restore Roosevelt, a 90-day enforcement crackdown previously described by JHISN (10/26/24). The crackdown is the brainchild of an energetic conservative initiative called the Let’s Improve Roosevelt Coalition, led by disgraced right-wing politician Hiram Monserrate, local church groups, embattled Mayor Adams, and City Councilmember Francisco Moya.

Operation Restore Roosevelt represents another advance for a spreading right-wing politics of respectability and scapegoating of recent immigrants. The current cop takeover of Roosevelt Avenue builds on an earlier conservative victory: largely destroying the internationally famous and much-loved vendor marketplace at Corona Plaza. Operation Restore Roosevelt is an even bigger spectacle of morality policing and criminalization, again directed at the poorest and most vulnerable immigrants in our community.

Acknowledging that there are long-standing problems with crowding and trash on Roosevelt, progressive politicians have attempted to get ahead of the conservative groundswell by promoting their own improvement plans for the Avenue. After Operation Restore Roosevelt was announced in mid-October, State Assembly member Jessica González-Rojas held a roundtable discussion on how to prevent sex trafficking in the community without police action. City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and Assemblymembers Steven Raga and Catalina Cruz quickly announced a “7 Point Plan,” emphasizing social services, licensing, inspections and infrastructure improvements rather than massive police presence. Cruz told the Queens Eagle:

“I think historically, there has been a relationship of fear, and that’s the reality of the members of the community with the police. It cannot be the only measure or solution…because if the only approach is enforcement, we’re going to have the exact same result that we’ve had for the last 10 years.”

Conservative organizers told news outlet QNS that they “repudiated any efforts by ‘radical fringe groups’ to oppose the policing plan and ‘return control’ of Roosevelt Avenue to cartels and street gangs.” Nevertheless, the 7 Point Plan has had recent mainstream successes. It was endorsed by Leslie Ramos of the 82nd St. Business Improvement District. Also, Governor Hochul just agreed to provide a million dollars to support four local grassroots organizations in implementing the Plan. The organizations include New Immigrant Community Empowerment, AIDS Center of Queens County, Korean American Family Service Center, and Commonpoint. 

It should be noted that Leslie Ramos and Hochul each originally supported Operation Restore Roosevelt––Hochul even supplied state troopers to beef it up. But they also are both aware that the police crackdown on the Avenue is due to end in January, while the 7 Point Plan aims for long-lasting solutions.

Looming in the background of the struggle over Roosevelt Avenue is the issue of big money real estate development. As JHISN previously reported, there has been major controversy over the proposed Metropolitan Park casino project, a giant development which would be adjacent to Roosevelt Avenue. The plan is slowly advancing, despite resistance by many progressives including State Senator Jessica Ramos. Part of the Senator’s concern about the plan, which a majority of her constituents oppose, is that it would bring the wrong kind of development and visitors to Roosevelt Avenue. “Why are casinos our prime economic development idea in New York City?”, she asks. Meanwhile, Mayor Adams’ new “City of Yes” housing plan, which was just passed by the City Council, eases zoning requirements and promotes larger scale real estate development along transit lines, such as the 7 train.

Battle lines on Roosevelt Avenue are being drawn according to where to assign blame for economic problems and quality of life issues. One group of activists has chosen to “punch down” at their most vulnerable immigrant neighbors, resorting to criminalization and demonization. While another group of activists is promoting social solidarity, demanding that all levels of government, community and business live up to their responsibility to provide work opportunity and social services in an environment free from repression and fear.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Consider volunteering with New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) here in Jackson Heights.
  • Subscribe to the Street Vendor Project’s newsletter.

2. Strategies for Future Immigrant Advocacy

“As the new Trump administration takes office, Adhikaar stands resolute in our commitment to grassroots organizing and providing essential, direct services to our community.” —Adhikaar Newsletter (11/15/24)

Last weekend the US president-elect stated clearly his intent to circumvent the 14th amendment in his pursuit to end birthright citizenship. This came after he proposed placing anti-immigrant hardliner and family separator, Tom Homan “in charge of our Nation’s Borders”. They plan to create the largest deportation force in US history, violating the rule of law, by using the US military on home soil despite knowing there are serious financial, legal, and logistical obstacles. Trump’s heartless strategy to avoid separating families that have a mix of undocumented members and citizens is to deport the entire family.

Also last weekend, in counterpoint, the National Immigration Inclusion Conference was held in Texas. The three-day gathering showcased immigrant groups’ intersectional approach to stand against the current and future administration. Building justice coalitions with unions and anti-racist, gender, housing, and youth groups, was a significant daily focus. Also on the agenda were sessions about turning arts and storytelling into impact strategies, examining how funders can support immigrant rights, and discussing various legal and mobilization strategies that the 1,500 people from 450 groups in attendance can implement.

Another organization that brings together immigrant advocacy support is Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees. At their two-day 2024 Convening, just a week before the election, they examined:

  • the state of the immigrant justice movement 
  • power-building strategies
  • how to intersect immigrant justice with racial justice
  • strategies for amplifying groups historically excluded from philanthropic investment. They called on funders “to act boldly, moving beyond financial investments to leverage their privilege and power to tackle the challenges that deny individuals the freedom to stay, move, work, transform, and thrive.”

Immigration Equality is an intersectional advocacy group that focuses on immigration rights for LGBTQ and HIV-positive people in the US. They recently published their Strategic Plan for 2024-2026 which includes demands for equity, secure paths to safety for LGBTQ refugees, robust resources for legal and self-help, and training enforcement officers and judges. They also demand the release of all LGBTQ and HIV-positive people from immigration detention centers.

Simply put—immigrant advocacy organizations are not silenced by Trump’s election victory and vicious rhetoric. They continue to work and provide the support their communities need.

According to Naomi Braine, a longtime activist and sociologist at CUNY, any thought of “resignation and retreat” is largely confined to people “who have never been engaged with sustained forms of action and resistance”. The election, she says, hasn’t affected the immigrant rights movement as a whole. The President of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Murad Awawdeh, stated after the election, “We’re going to fight it…we’re as prepared, if not more prepared than the first time around.” He identified a three-prong approach: protests, local legislation, and lawsuits. Soon after that statement, NYIC published its 10-year Blueprint for Immigrant Progress and Justice. In November, Manuel Castro of NYC’s Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs said they are working with all community groups and agencies to ensure everyone understands the sanctuary laws of our city. 

New York Congressman, Adriano Espaillat, is running unopposed to lead the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the next Congress. He has said he will oppose any efforts to pursue the additional threat of denaturalizations as promoted by American Firster Stephen Miller. “I think it’s a radical approach, one that is unprecedented in America, and I think that the vast majority of American people will oppose it as well.” The ACLU is also looking at various ways to oppose deportations. Their National Prison Project is looking to shine a light on the shadowy operations of the deportation machine. Using Freedom of Information litigation, the ACLU is preparing lawsuits against mass detention and deportation actions. One of the organization’s recent public record lawsuits demands more details about ICE Air, the government’s method for carrying out deportation flights.

To immigrant advocates, legal support, and immigrant rights groups, the threat of deportation and anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation is simply not new. Advocates have been providing groups with Know Your Rights materials and are now adding to their presentations family safety planning. They also anticipate a marked escalation of what was seen during the first Trump administration. They anticipate drastic changes without any prior announcements from the administration and will rely on word of mouth as a way for people to learn about what is happening. As Adhikaar concluded in their newsletter:

“The election outcome is a reminder of the entrenched systems that seek to undermine the rights and dignity of marginalized communities…We refuse to let our communities be silenced or pushed into the shadows. Together, we will continue to build power, advocate for justice, and demand a future where all can thrive with dignity and self-determination.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Newsletter (JHISN)

 

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