WAVE OF FEAR
shock waves after a week of raids in city Immigs fear going to church, leaving house
Immigs around city keep out of sight after deport raids
THE PEWS were unusually empty at St. Roch Catholic Church on Staten Island Sunday. Many of the church’s immigrant parishioners were afraid to leave the house.
A wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the metropolitan area last week — resulting in the arrest of about 40 people, according to the agency — has sent shock waves of fear through New York’s heavily immigrant communities. People said they worry their families will be torn apart. And business own- ers said they won’t be able to stay afloat as their usual customers stop spending to prepare for the worst.
“Yes, we are afraid. You hear about all of these raids going on. Of course, they are going to stop you if you are Hispanic. You feel like you have a target on your back,” said a 62-year-old Peruvian immigrant who attended service at St. Roch in Port Richmond. “All you can do is pray.” The church is in the area where, a day earlier, ICE pulled four Mexican men from their homes, and arrested another Mexican man outside the courthouse, sources said. Four of the men have children.
The Rev. Edmund Whalen told the Daily News he usually preached to a full house on Sunday, but his church was half-empty. “There is a sense of uncertainty. They don’t know what’s coming next,” he said.
A nearby Honduran and Mexican restaurant, La Catracha, was also quiet. “Usually the place is filled with families. But today is empty. No one is leaving their homes. They are afraid,” said the owner Diana Matute, 40. “If this keeps up, I may have to close.”
Nearly 40% of the city’s population of 8.2 million is foreign-born, according to a 2013 study by the city Planning Commission. In at least nine neighborhoods, more than half the residents are foreignborn.
ICE said nearly 95% of the foreign nationals arrested in the New York area over the past week were criminal aliens, fugitives or illegal reentrants.
They were among more than 600 people arrested across the nation in 11 states, officials said.
The agency called the raids “routine, daily, targeted operations.”
An ICE official noted the agency is obligated to implement orders by federal judges ordering deportations. “The President has been clear in saying that (the Homeland Security Department) should be focused on removing individuals who pose a threat to public safety, who have been charged with criminal offenses, who have committed multiple immigration violations or who have been deported and reentered the country illegally,” the official said.
Deborah Axt, co-executive director of the immigration advocacy group Make the Road New York, said she’s concerned about the agency’s definition of “public safety threats.”
“Make no mistake: This definition is broad enough to cover nearly anyone who came to this country to survive, to put food in their children’s mouths, or to flee violence and persecution,” she said.
The Legal Aid Society’s immigration law unit established a hotline — (844) 955-3425 — for people seeking answers about the wave of enforcement.
Society supervising attorney Sarah Gilman said “communities are really taken by surprise and thrown into a state of disarray, panic and fear” by the raids.
ICE would not give any details about those detained in the New York area, but said it planned to release more information Monday, including “final statistics and photographs.”
Meanwhile, people all over the city are in panic.
On Saturday an apparently unfounded rumor spread like wildfire across Facebook and Twitter, warning people to avoid Roosevelt Ave. and Junction Blvd. in Queens because 10 ICE officers had set up a checkpoint to detain undocumented immigrants.
The neighborhood, Corona, is home to 66,259 foreign-born New Yorkers, or 64% of the neighborhood’s total population.
Business owners at the intersection said there were notably fewer people going out to eat on Sunday — likely due to the rumor.
“Ever since the ICE rumors started yesterday, I haven’t seen many customers around. Sundays are usually good days,” said Maria Crespo, 70 (photo inset), an immigrant from Ecuador who works at the eatery Chola Cuencana.
ICE called reports of checkpoints and sweeps “false, dangerous and irresponsible.”
The NYPD said it did not participate in the raids.
The agency’s efforts were not entirely new. President Barack Obama was referred to derisively by advocates as “the deporter-inchief.” He oversaw deportations of 2.5 million people — more than any other administration in history.
In Washington Heights, where 80,174 people — or 49% of the neighborhood population — are foreign-born, families had conversations about what to do should one of them be deported.
“I’m scared. We’ve always been scared because of our situation, but now it feels different. It feels like they are out looking for us, for everyone who is undocumented,”
usually the place is filled with families. But today is empty. no one is leaving their homes. they are afraid. Diana matute, restaurant owner
said an undocumented Mexican deliveryman who would only give his name as Cruz. He said he and his wife had talked to their children, who are citizens ages 13 and 18, about the worst-case scenario.
“I tell my kids don’t do anything wrong ever, not the smallest thing,” he said, adding that he’d told them not even to give someone a free subway swipe.
“If you get a ticket they will look at everyone in our family and that will be it. It's not safe, you have to act perfect.”
Favio Ramirez-Caminatti, the executive director of El Centro del Inmigrante on Staten Island, said there had been a surge in people seeking free legal assistance. Prior to President Trump taking office, the center worked with 80 to 85 people a day. Now, as many as 150 people are seeking help at the center.
“They are really afraid about what can happen,” RamirezCaminatti, 32, said.
The anxiety extended to Long Island, where Aldair Gonzalez, 23, said he has seen ICE patrolling Southern Parkway and in his neighborhood in Syosset. He and his parents are undocumented. “My parents are scared to leave the house, they’re telling me to lock the door, don’t leave the house unless you need to,” said Gonzalez, a premed student at Stony Brook University.
“What can you do? If you’re undocumented it’s either staying inside or face the fact you might get deported.”
Advocates said the confusion over the wave of raids was reminiscent of the chaos at international airports around the country after Trump suddenly implemented his executive order last month temporarily banning refugees, along with citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, from entering the country.
Hundreds, including Mayor de Blasio, endured freezing rain in Battery Park on Sunday to protest the ban.
“No freezing rain is going to stop us from fighting for justice, right?” de Blasio said in front of Castle Clinton National Monument.
“An attack on refugees is an attack on all of us.”