Perhaps no other U.S. city has an immigrant history as rich as New York City, where more than a third of the people are foreign-born. As a so-called “sanctuary city,” New York City also has protections in place for undocumented residents—who number as high as 500,000—which restricts local collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“But in recent months,” The Marshall Project and The New Yorker report, “with headlines about terrified toddlers in ‘baby jails’ and a president who refers to migrants as an ‘infestation,’ it’s become increasingly clear: In the era of Donald Trump, even New York City doesn’t feel safe for the undocumented”—or even their loved ones. “For many immigrant New Yorkers, once ordinary activities are now fraught with dread.”
“The moment [Trump] became president, I panicked,” said Emilene Rodriquez, a U.S. citizen who is married to an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. “Last year, we didn’t go on vacation. I was like, we’re not going anywhere. In February, my husband’s nephew passed away in Houston and even though half of me was worried, the other half was like, this is family, you have to go.”
“I had to put my fear away and hop on a plane with him and pray to God that we would come back,” she continued. “But was I fearful? Yes. Did I have the lawyer’s number on my phone? Yes, I did. Was I prepared? Yes, I was. He carries the lawyer’s card. He has it in his wallet. I tell him, 'Remember, if something happens, you say nothing and tell them to call my lawyer.' Those are the conversations we’re having more now since this administration.”
It’s impossible to ignore the fear on the ground. In the months following Trump’s inauguration, ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal record surged 225 percent in the New York area, while arrests overall jumped by 67 percent. ICE agents have even reportedly stalked immigrants at human trafficking court, an action slammed by former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito as “a shameful, predatory tactic.”
“K.V.,” an immigrant who is applying for a visa for victims of human trafficking survivors, said that “when Trump won, I was in a hotel. I was watching TV and I'm like, ‘Oh no, I'm really getting deported.’” Trump’s win emboldened her abuser, saying that he “really took advantage more of the situation. The abuse started happening more often. Because he knew how scared I was to get deported. He was like, 'They don't want y'all here, if you ever call the police or do anything, they're going to send you back home.'”
David Lenzner, a teacher at the WHEELS school in Washington Heights, said his school had one student in particular who “was really excelling academically,” but then “just disappeared one day.” Mass deportation policies were to blame. “The mother, who was undocumented, went on the run with the child,” he said. “She was this lovely 6th grade student whose whole life was upended because ICE was making threats.”
Ivy Teng Lei, another young immigrant and a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, expressed uncertainty about her own future. “My work permit through DACA expires in March,” she said. “In the last months, DACA was rescinded and no applications were being accepted. Then a federal court struck down the White House decision to rescind it, and they started accepting existing application renewals.”
She said “the volatility of it all is just so mentally draining. Even my friends will ask things like, ‘So are you still going to be deported?’ And I'm like, ‘Dude, I don't know!’ I think the only thing I can carry with me is that, if I do get the knock on the door, that when I leave this country, I have told this country who I am and what I represent. I've done everything I can.”
More than 100 other New Yorkers share their own experiences with the Marshall Project and The New Yorker here, and when people often get reduced to headlines, numbers, and statistics, we must remember their names, their experiences, and their humanity. “We lost that girl,” Lenzner said about the young student. “We lost that family.”