In the latest report published by the Immigrant Defense Project (IDP) tracking ICE raids, immigrants in New York, including on Long Island, are being aggressively targeted whether outside courthouses or simply being passengers in a taxi, putting them onto a fast track for deportation.
The ICEwatch report — with an accompanying map showing where the raids occurred — draws from Freedom of Information Act requests, information from community organizations, and reports from legal aid programs.
“ICE relies on fear-mongering, secrecy, deceit, manipulation, and force to enact its devastating deportation mandate to deport as many people as possible,” Genia Blaser, IDP’s senior staff attorney said in a statement, as reported by City Lab. “By making the reports of their dehumanizing tactics widely available through [this map], we aim to inform the public and community members around the escalation of ‘unshackled’ ICE policing.”
In the IDP’s overall assessment of the data, they conclude that ICE enters homes without required voluntary consent; employs deceptive ruses, including pretending to be police; surveils immigrant communities; and outrights uses — or threatens the use of — physical force.
The report comprehensively compiled more than 650 narrative accounts of the raids around the New York metropolitan area since 2013. The report refers to targeted immigrants by their initials.
On September 25, 2017, ZD was arrested after leaving Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola with his mother. Two vans with “POLICE” written on them stopped the taxi they were in just three blocks from the court. Plainclothes ICE officers asked everyone in the taxi for identification, and arrested ZD when he could not produce an ID. At the time, they refused to share any information with his mother. Later, ZD called her while in custody, and she learned that the agents were ICE and not police.
On February 23, 2017, plainclothes ICE agents stopped a taxi in Bay Shore with guns drawn and pulled out JAQ, and shoved him against the vehicle. They left the taxi driver with all of JAQ’s personal belongings and did not explain who they were.
Weeks earlier, on February 7, an immigrant known as CJ was arrested after dropping off his daughter at a school bus stop in Bay Shore. They then took his keys, and drove his car to the home of his former partner, who owned the car, and told her that they had arrested him.
A map showing where raids occurred, with brief accounts, can be viewed here. The full report can be read here.
