Trump migrant crackdown vow stirs fear in NY

New York: Venezuelan migrant Omar Virguez took to the streets of New York to protest, hiding his face fearing he would be targeted by immigration enforcement carrying out President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations.

Panic is spreading among undocumented migrants and their supporters in the United States following Trump’s return to the White House and the Democratic mayor of New York’s alignment with the Republican president on the issue of migration.

“I’m afraid, like all immigrants, because we don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” said nurse Virguez, 42, who recently arrived from Venezuela.

“I hide when I see police officers.”

He joined the February protest against ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are uniformly known as “la migra” among Spanish-speaking migrants.

He stood well back from the police lines, his face hidden by a thick black covering. The melting pot city of 8.3 million people has seen an inflow of 232,000 migrants since 2022, and migrant advocacy groups accuse the mayor of abandoning its status as a sanctuary city.

Sanctuary city status means that local officials, including the police, do not routinely cooperate with national immigration enforcement operations, and provide other relief to undocumented migrants.

In a stark break with his past positions, Mayor Eric Adams has raised the prospect of immigration officers returning to the city’s largest prison complex, Rikers Island.

He has also warned that churches, hospitals and schools -- previously spared from immigration raids under a memo protecting sensitive locations that Trump tore up -- should not obstruct officers.

“With this new president... we are always with that fear on our minds that they are going to stop us to ask us for documents or... look for undocumented people like me,” said Victor who was living in a church that offers shelter to people in his situation.

In a sign of mounting fear, migrant associations have been deluged by requests for “bust cards” -- legal crib sheets in 19 languages to which undocumented migrants can refer if they stopped by officers.

One symptom of the fear in the community has been a jump in migrant children missing school, warns Yari Michel, a Brooklyn teacher and member of the United Federation of Teachers.

Despite Trump’s visceral language on deportations, there has not yet been the promised waves of mass round-ups.

Levels remain similar to under former president Joe Biden when thousands of undocumented migrants were also deported. Many in the Latino community report that they have stopped venturing out.