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As Raids Failed to Materialize, Many Immigrants Still Felt Fearful

St. Joan of Arc Church in the Bronx held know-your-rights workshops for immigrants on Sunday.

The city braced for deportation raids this weekend that didn’t come to pass, but legal groups and city officials fanned out across the five boroughs to assuage fears and inform immigrants of their rights.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were planning to arrest families who recently arrived, missed their court dates, and were ordered deported. But fear has spread among many immigrants. At Saint Joan of Arc Church on Stratford Avenue in the Bronx, around 60 people filed into the basement for know-your-rights workshops. Alejandra, who didn’t want to provide her last name, said she came to the U.S. 12 years ago from Mexico and doesn’t have legal status. She said she feels afraid.

“We stay at home,” she said in Spanish. “We can’t go out.”

She said she rarely leaves her house now, because she worries what would happen to her two U.S. citizen daughters if she got deported. Hilario Galicia Montes, a volunteer at the church, said he wasn’t afraid, after spending 21 years in the country and regularly paying taxes. But he said many of his friends are scared.

“They don’t want to go out,” he said. “They don’t want to go to work.”

On Sunday, Mayor de Blasio said ICE agents attempted to arrest people in Harlem and Sunset Park on Saturday but weren’t successful. The agency didn’t respond to WNYC’s request for comment and hasn’t confirmed if these activities were part of the planned operation across the country targeting around 2,000 people.

Across Sunset Park activists and politicians were handing out fliers with information on what to do if ICE knocked on people’s doors. City Councilman Carlos Menchaca said the attempted raid in his neighborhood put many immigrants on edge.

“We know that those have been unsuccessful attempts of ICE to remove our families from our neighborhood because people are not opening up their door,” he said. “That's exactly what power we have as neighbors and immigrants, to not open the door and engage ICE."

The fear of ICE raids was perhaps most apparent in neighborhood spots where there was an unusual quiet for a summer Sunday. On Twitter, Dan Lavoie noticed an empty soccer field in Sunset Park, where he said "normally there would be "30-40 Chinese women dancing, dozens of Mexican men playing soccer and literally hundreds of kids on the playground."

"The fear — like the cruelty — is the point," he tweeted.

In Jackson Heights, one of the city’s most diverse communities, about two hundred people marched and passed out fliers. Roque Rodriguez said he didn't know what to make of President Trump's threat to have thousands arrested.

"I take the possibility that this is all a big show, to make people angry and upset,” he said. “I hope people don't do that and take the bait. But I love that people showed up to support each other in the community.”

State Senator Luis Sepulveda, who represents the Bronx, was handing out his cellphone number during the workshops at the Saint Joan of Arc Church. Raids will reportedly continue over the next few days, and Sepulveda said he was sending a message that the city will protect and defend immigrants.

“We have to remain vigilant at all times, and we have to do everything possible to get the word out there and let people know that they have people looking out for them,” he said.