Uniting under #adaywithoutimmigrants, businesses across the nation remained closed today in powerful defiance of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. The protesters, enraged that Immigration and Customs officials reportedly arrested 680 immigrants last week, have been urging immigrant workers to stay home from work and school, and refrain from buying anything. The idea is to highlight how integral immigrants are to the backbone of the country by stalling economic contribution for one day. Close on the heels of Washington D.C., which became the epicenter of the strike/boycott, dozens of businesses across NYC will remain closed today. Most are, fittingly, restaurants– an industry largely dependent on immigrant employees.
immigration
Weekend Warriors: Thousands of New Yorkers Keep Up Protests Against Trump
(Photo: Scott Lynch)
Anti-Trump protesters once again poured into the city streets over the weekend. On Saturday, thousands of people shut down Fifth Avenue for more than two miles as they marched from Union Square to Trump Tower, in Midtown East, screaming messages of disgust and defiance at the president-elect. On Sunday afternoon, activists gathered their forces outside of Trump International Hotel & Tower, near Columbus Circle, to protest looming policy measures that would have major consequences for undocumented immigrants and their families.
After Trump’s Victory, Local Immigrants Brace For Impact
(Photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)
With the announcement of Donald Trump’s jaw-dropping victory on Wednesday morning, a massive question mark now hangs over the country. Will Trump’s reign be equally as volatile as the GOP candidate’s campaign? Hard to say, since the guy clearly gave very few shits about consistency. What’s more, it’s often next to impossible to understand what, if anything, Trump believes in (even his own ghostwriter has described Trump as a “living black hole”). But our first “orange president” has made one promise resoundingly clear: Immigrants are going to get hit hard.
Immigrant Workers are Using Co-Ops Like a Boss
Three years ago, Daniel Lopez injured his knee. The 37-year-old native of Mexico never had health insurance, so he waited until the pain got so bad, it wouldn’t allow him to work anymore. Only recently did he get surgery.
His knee is still swollen. “It hurts,” he says. He can barely walk, much less work. But he wouldn’t miss a meeting of his United Handymen Workers Cooperative.
Bushwick Residents Rally at City Hall to Decry Deadlock on Immigration Reform
(Photo: Luisa Rollenhagen)
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A Church Sheds Neon on the East Village’s Immigrant Past
This week and next, we present a series of longer pieces unraveling the histories of storied buildings.
The neon cross on today’s Father’s Heart Ministries Church (Ilaria Parogni)
Late at night, red light splashes onto the sidewalk from a flashy neon cross affixed incongruously to the simple but elegant Gothic Revival façade of a red brick building on 11th Street between avenues A and B. “Jesus Saves,” it blares. Inside is the bustle of the Father’s Heart Ministries, where the work of the church’s succession of occupants over the past century and a half contradicts what that crass latter-day choice of illumination might otherwise portend.
Hundreds of Protesters Take the Fight Against Donald Trump to His Backyard
(Photos: Sarah Aziza)
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been protested with street art, gallery shows, and even a piñata pummeling, but yesterday brought an unprecedented scene as an eclectic crowd of New Yorkers gathered outside the Republican candidate’s own Trump Tower, wielding signs calling to “END RACISM” and “WELCOME REFUGEES.”
Tags: Crime + Community, Donald Trump, immigration, Islam, muslims, protests, rally, Syria, syrian refugees, trump tower
‘We’re in the Eye of the Storm’: Brooklyn’s Undocumented Immigrants Get Ready For Reform
(Photos: Mary Reinholz)
Fernando Canovas has lived in the shadow of the law for 23 years, working as a cook in Queens and never visiting a doctor’s office in part because of problems with his ID. “I don’t get sick,” said the 43-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico City on a recent late afternoon.
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Tags: Arab American Association of New York, Crime + Community, daca, dapa, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, dreamers, illegal immigrants, immigration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, undocumented workers, Williamsburg
In Williamsburg, A Hidden Refuge For the Undocumented and Incurable
Casa Betsaida’s chapel. (Photo: Mary Reinholz)
The former convent on Hewes Street is a mystery house: there’s no sign outside announcing its name or mission. People walk in and out of the two-story building quietly, most of them black and Latino men largely unnoticed in this Satmar Hasidic part of South Williamsburg. One 34-year-old man, from Guatemala, paused to talk to this reporter and then was on his way, in a hurry to get a prescription filled.
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