New York
Immigration Arrests Prompt Fear That Mass Deportations Loom
Last year in New Jersey, federal immigration officers took more than 1,300 undocumented migrants into custody. That figure was roughly 300 more than in 2023.
But on Thursday, less than a week into President Trump’s second term, the arrests of three people at a fish distribution warehouse in Newark appeared to tap a well of pent-up fear about mass deportations in a region teeming with immigrants.
The streets around the warehouse filled early Friday with television crews. Newark’s mayor held a news conference to decry the methods used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as unconstitutional and blamed Mr. Trump, who campaigned on a promise to initiate the “largest deportation program in American history.”
Whether Thursday’s arrests in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood were part of a new crackdown, or fairly typical of ICE enforcement actions in the city in recent years, was not immediately clear. Immigration arrests in the city are common. Last month, under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., ICE officers based in Newark announced 33 arrests to little public notice. And ICE officials did not reply to several requests for comment.
But the enforcement activity left immigrants across the region on edge. There were reports of ICE officers knocking on doors in Vineland, in New Jersey’s southern agricultural region, which is heavily dependent on migrant labor. On Long Island, immigrant rights activists said they were busy fielding reports of “ramped-up” activity by ICE officers. And a police captain in Ossining, N.Y., Brendan Donohue, warned that rumors often multiply more quickly than facts.
“Fear spreads very quickly, and even just the suggestion that ICE could come here turns into a ‘ICE was here’ kind of a situation,” Captain Donohue said. “These things can snowball, of course.”
Merchants in Newark who run body shops and cafes near the fish distribution center, Ocean Seafood Depot, said Thursday’s midday raid was unusual for the industrial neighborhood, which is dotted with two-story homes and some of the city’s best restaurants.
Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, a Democrat who is running for governor, warned that the city intended to defend its residents.
“If he thinks that we’re just going to go to jail quietly,” Mr. Baraka said of Mr. Trump, “he’s got another thing coming.”
Immigration officers entered legally through a fish store at the front of the facility. But Mr. Baraka said that they had proceeded, without presenting a warrant, into a large nonpublic warehouse where workers pack fish and load it onto delivery trucks.
He said ICE officials had also challenged the validity of a military ID presented by a U.S. citizen who works at the warehouse and was questioned during the raid. Mr. Baraka urged workers and their employers to become familiar with their rights — before ICE officers show up.
“We can disagree about whether you support mass deportation or not,” Mr. Baraka said. “But what we must agree on is — the thing that separates this country from many other countries around the world — is the Constitution.”
“Everyone has a right to due process,” he added, “and no one can go around these laws.”
Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said she had raced to the warehouse after receiving reports of a raid before lunchtime on Thursday.
“They were heavily armed,” she said of the uniformed officers who conducted the search.
“They were blocking off entrances and exits. They were scrambling up delivery ramps. They were banging down bathroom doors to make sure no one was hiding inside,” she added.
All but a handful of the roughly 80 people who work at the warehouse abruptly left for the day, fearing a repeat visit by the enforcement agency, Ms. Torres said.
The effect of the enforcement action remained palpable on Friday. Barbershops were empty along a normally bustling commercial corridor near the seafood company. Customers were scarce at a cafe that its owner said routinely fills each morning with warehouse workers who come in to buy coffee before their shifts.
A Newark councilman who lives in the area, Michael Silva, said he, too, had noticed an immediate change.
He said he typically wakes each morning at 4:45 a.m. to the sound of his next-door neighbor opening a gate to leave for work.
“This morning, I didn’t hear that gate,” said Mr. Silva, the son of Portuguese immigrants. “He told me that he was scared to go to work.”
Jessica Greenberg, the legal director at CARECEN-NY, an organization that works with immigrant communities on Long Island, said that alarm about Mr. Trump’s immigration policies had intensified over the last week.
“They are going after people that were considered ‘low-hanging fruit’ in past administrations,” Ms. Greenberg said, adding, “We’ve been on the phone with individuals while ICE has been banging on their door or shortly after ICE has left.”
ICE arrests are hardly novel in the region. In December, while Mr. Biden was still in office, ICE officers based in Newark conducted what the agency called a “weeklong, targeted, surge operation.”
Still, immigrant rights leaders have been holding events designed to instruct documented and undocumented residents on their rights in anticipation of a broad crackdown by Mr. Trump.
New Jersey education officials also released guidance this week to school leaders, offering instructions on what to do if immigration officials show up at public schools. The instructions came in response to Mr. Trump’s Tuesday announcement that ICE and Homeland Security officers would no longer be barred from detaining people at schools or churches, so-called sensitive locations that since 2011 had been considered safe spaces.
Rui Lorenço works at a car repair shop in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, which is home to a large number of Portuguese, Brazilian and Ecuadorean residents. He said he had noticed heightened panic on social media over the last week.
Mr. Lorenço, who moved to the United States about five years ago from Lisbon, said he supported clearer rules on immigration, but not what he described as “hate speech” spread by Mr. Trump and his supporters.
“This is a country made of immigrants,” Mr. Lorenço said. “If they come to take people away that are just working, that’s concerning.”
Larissa Cardoso, 22, emigrated to the United States from Brazil about a year ago. She said she was afraid about what a stricter immigration policy could mean for her and her friends in the days ahead.
“I always dreamed to come here, and I try to do things right,” said Ms. Cardoso, a waitress and bartender in a popular Ironbound restaurant who has been working to gain legal immigration status.
“People come here because they literally want to change their lives,” she said. “With what’s happening now — their lives could now stop.”
Hurubie Meko and Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.
Nikki Ogunnaike, the editor in chief of Marie Claire magazine, did not grow up the scion of an Anna Wintour or a Marc Jacobs.
But, she said, “my mom and dad are both very stylish people.”
They got dressed up to go to church every week in her hometown Springfield, Va. Her mother managed a Staples; her father, a CVS. “Presentation is important to them,” she said.
Since landing her first internship with Glamour magazine in college, Ms. Ogunnaike, 40, has held editorial roles there and at Elle magazine and GQ. She has been in the top post at Marie Claire since 2023.
She recently spent a Saturday with The New York Times as she prepared for Milan Fashion Week.
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
It has never really occurred to Marian or Charles Wade to live anywhere but the city where they were born and where they raised their children.
New York is in their bones. “We have our roots here, and our families enjoyed life here before us,” Ms. Wade said.
And they feel lucky. Between Mr. Wade’s pension, earned after more than 40 years as an analyst at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and his Social Security benefits, along with Ms. Wade’s work as a physical therapist at a psychiatric center, they bring in about $208,000 a year.
Still, it’s hard for the couple not to notice how much the city has changed as it has become wealthier.
About 10 years ago, Ms. Wade, 65, and Mr. Wade, 69, sold the Morningside Heights apartment they had lived in for decades. The Manhattan neighborhood had become more affluent, and tensions over how their building should be managed and how much residents should be expected to pay for upkeep boiled over between people who had lived there for years and newer neighbors.
They found a new home in Harlem, large enough to fit their two children, who are now adults struggling to afford the city’s housing market.
All in the Family
Ms. Wade knew it was time to leave Morningside Heights when she spotted her husband hiding behind a bush outside their building, hoping to avoid an unpleasant new neighbor. They had bought their apartment in 1994 for $206,000, using some money they had inherited from their families, and sold it in 2015 for $1.13 million.
The couple found a new apartment in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem for $811,000, and put most of the money down upfront. They took out a loan with a good rate for the remaining cost, and had a $947 monthly payment. They recently finished paying off the mortgage, but they have monthly maintenance payments of $1,555, as well as two temporary assessments to help improve the building, totaling $415 a month.
Their two children each moved home shortly after graduating from college.
The couple’s son, Jacob Wade, 28, split an apartment with three roommates nearby for a while, but spent down his savings and moved back in with his parents. He is searching for an affordable one bedroom nearby and plans to move out later in the year. Their daughter, Elka Wade, 27, came home after college but recently moved to an apartment in Astoria, Queens, with roommates.
Until their daughter moved out a few weeks ago, she and her brother each took a bedroom, and Mr. and Ms. Wade slept in the dining room, which they had converted into their bedroom with the help of a Murphy bed and a new set of curtains for privacy.
There is very little storage space. A piano occupies an entire closet in their son’s bedroom, because the family has no other place to fit it.
The setup is cramped, but close quarters have their benefits: When their daughter, a classically trained cellist, was living there, she often practiced at home in the evenings. “I love listening to her play,” Ms. Wade said.
Three Foodtowns and a Thrift Shop
The Wades do what they can to keep their costs low. They’ve decided against installing new, better insulated windows in their drafty apartment. They don’t go on vacations, instead visiting their small weekend home in rural upstate New York. And they’ve pulled back on takeout food and retail shopping.
Instead, Mr. Wade surveys the three Foodtown supermarkets near their home for the best deals, preferring one for produce and another for meat. The weekly grocery bill has been around $500 with both kids living at home, and the family usually orders delivery twice a week, rotating between Chinese and Indian food, which typically costs $70, including leftovers.
For an occasional splurge, they love Pisticci, a nearby restaurant where the penne with homemade mozzarella costs $21.
The couple owns a car, which they park on the street for free. But they often use public transportation to avoid paying the $9 congestion pricing fee to drive downtown, or when they have a good parking spot they don’t want to give up. They have a senior discount for their transit cards, which allows them to pay $1.50 per subway or bus ride, rather than $3.
Ms. Wade stopped shopping at the stores she used to frequent, like Eileen Fisher and Banana Republic, years ago. Instead, she visits a thrift store called Unique Boutique on the Upper West Side. She was browsing the aisles a few months ago, before a big Thanksgiving dinner, and spotted the perfect dress for the occasion for just $20.
But she has one nonnegotiable weekly expense: a private yoga lesson in an instructor’s apartment nearby, for $150 a session.
Swapping Mortgage Payments for Singing Lessons
For every member of the Wade family, life in New York is all about the arts.
The children each attended the Special Music School, a public school focused on the arts. Their son, an actor, teacher and director, works part time at the Metropolitan Opera and the Kaufman Music Center, a performing arts complex in Manhattan. His sister works in administration at the Kaufman Center.
Mr. Wade is still close with friends from high school who are now professional musicians, and the couple often goes to see them play at venues like the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, where shows typically have a $12 cover and a two-drink minimum.
The couple has cut back on going to expensive concerts — they used to try to see Elvis Costello every time he came to New York, for example — but have timeworn strategies for getting affordable theater tickets.
They recently splurged on tickets to “Oedipus” on Broadway for themselves and their daughter, who they treated to a ticket as a birthday gift. The seats were in the nosebleed section, but still cost $80 apiece.
The couple has a $75 annual membership to the Film Forum, which gives them reduced price tickets to movies. They occasionally get discounted tickets to the opera through their son’s work, and when they don’t, they pay for family circle passes, which are usually $47 a head, plus a $10 fee.
Ms. Wade, who grew up commuting from Flushing, Queens, to Manhattan to take dance lessons, sometimes takes $20 drop-in ballet classes during the week at the Dance Theater of Harlem, just a few blocks away from the apartment.
Recently, when the couple paid off their mortgage, Ms. Wade celebrated by giving herself a treat: weekly private singing lessons, for $125 a session.
The technology industry is obsessed with the future.
Many of our modern marvels are rooted in the legacy of Bell Labs, an innovation powerhouse in suburban New Jersey.
Bell Labs, the once-famed research arm of AT&T, celebrated the centennial of its founding last year.
In its heyday, starting in the 1940s, the lab created a cascade of inventions, including the transistor, information theory and an enduring computer software language. The labs’ digital DNA is in our smartphones, social media and chatbot conversations.
“Every hour of your day has a bit of Bell Labs in it,” observed Jon Gertner, author of “The Idea Factory,” a history of the storied research center.
Bell Labs’ most far-reaching idea — information theory — forms the bedrock of computing. The mathematical framework, known as the “Magna Carta of the information age,” provided a blueprint for sending and receiving information with precision and reliability. It was the brainchild of Claude Shannon, a brilliant eccentric whom the A.I. start-up Anthropic named its chatbot after.
Last month, Nvidia announced a new A.I. chip packed with more than 300 billion transistors — the tiny on-off electrical switches invented in the lab.
Bell Labs became so powerful and renowned that it is entrenched in pop culture. The 1968 sci-fi movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” drew inspiration from Bell Labs, and the father of the titular character in the period dramedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” worked there. Most recently, characters in the show “Severance” report to a former Bell Labs building.
Here are some of the labs’ most prominent inventions.
Bell Labs described itself as a wide-ranging “institute of creative technology.” And it was a well-funded one, thanks to the monopoly held by AT&T — with incentive to expand Ma Bell’s phone business.
One invention was Telstar, the first powerful communications satellite, which could receive radio signals, then amplify them (10 billion times) and retransmit them. This allowed for real-time phone conversations across oceans, high-speed data communications and global television broadcasts.
1960
In 1960, Bell Labs launched an earlier orbital communications satellite in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — a passive balloon satellite called Echo that could reflect signals one way.
1962
The lab again teamed up with NASA to launch the smaller Telstar, which was about three feet in diameter and weighed 170 pounds.
1962
Bell Labs also developed some of the rocket technology that launched the satellite, a byproduct of an antiballistic missile project.
1962
Lyndon B. Johnson, vice president at the time, spoke on the first phone conversation bounced off a satellite. “You’re coming through nicely,” he assured Frederick Kappel, the phone company’s chairman.
PRESENT
In the decades since, those groundbreaking inventions from Bell Labs have become ubiquitous and affordable. International phone calls and television broadcasts are part of daily life. Today, more than 11,000 satellites provide internet, surveillance and navigation services, and are crucial for driverless cars and drone warfare.
While developing mobile-phone service, Bell Labs scientists drove around in a van to check transmission quality.
The labs submitted its plan for a working cellular network to the government in 1971, and AT&T opened the first commercial cellular service in Chicago more than a decade later.
1968
An early, simple version of mobile service was essentially a conventional phone on wheels — the car phone. Through radio technology, it connected to the landline network for calls.
1972
Smaller, more powerful chips, radios and batteries made a truly mobile phone possible. It still weighed nearly two pounds.
PRESENT
The technology continued to improve, as cellphones grew smaller and more sophisticated. Smartphones, which gained popularity with the iPhone’s launch in 2007, helped cement the devices as everywhere, ever-present and the dominant device for communication, information and entertainment — for better or worse.
The Picturephone allowed you to see the person you were talking to on a small screen.
1968
And it was heavily promoted. An ad for the Picturephone said it amounted to “crossing a telephone with a TV set.” Its tagline: “Someday you’ll be a star!”
1964
The Picturephone was introduced to great fanfare at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
1964
Even the White House was enlisted for a publicized demo. Lady Bird Johnson spoke via Picturephone to a Bell Labs scientist, Elizabeth Wood.
1968
But at the cost of $16 for a three-minute call (more than $165 today), the novelty soon wore off. Though a market failure, the Picturephone had a star turn in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
PRESENT
Decades later, tech giants ran with the vision of talking with people on video. Similar technology is now incorporated in every smartphone, allowing families to chat in real time. Video calls have also transformed the way we work — connecting people around the world for meetings.
The light-sensitive electronic sensor, called a charge-coupled device, opened the door to digital imaging. It captured images by converting photons of light into electrons, breaking images into pixels.
1978
Efforts to use the imaging sensors in cameras and camcorders began in the 1970s, and the products steadily improved. The cameras got smaller and the images sharper. Willard Boyle and George E. Smith earned a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention.
1978
The science is complicated, but the sensor converts light to electrical charges, stores them and then shifts them across the chip to be measured.
PRESENT
By the early 2000s, a smaller, cheaper technology, CMOS, had won out in mass markets like camera phones. But charge-coupled sensors remained the choice for tasks requiring very high resolution, like mapping the Milky Way.
The silicon solar cell was a Bell Labs triumph of material physics.
The solar cell performs a special kind of photon-to-electron conversion — sunlight to energy.
1956
But while a scientific success, the early solar cell technology was a market flop — prohibitively expensive for mainstream adoption. By one estimate at the time, it would have cost $1.5 million for the solar cells needed to meet the electricity needs of the average American house in 1956.
PRESENT
The solar industry would take off decades later, riding the revolution in semiconductor technology, with prices falling and performance soaring. Government subsidies in many countries, eager to nurture clean energy development, helped as well. Today, light-catching panels stretch across fields and deserts.
All computer technology stems from the transistor, the seemingly infinitely scalable nugget of hardware that is essentially an on-off electrical switch that powers digital technology. It was invented at Bell Labs, which licensed the technology to others, paving the way for today’s tech industry.
The versatile transistor can also boost signals by gating electrons and then releasing them.
1956
These transistors — seen on the face of a dime — were the tiniest in their day. The smaller the transistors, the more that can be packed on a chip, using less electricity and enabling faster, more powerful computers.
1950s
Improvements in transistor design led to mass production in the 1950s, helping inspire new products like the portable transistor radio.
1956
The transistor’s inventors — John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley — shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their creation.
1979
The technology continued to improve as a “computer on a chip” in the late 1970s. It was smaller than a fingernail and a few hundredths of an inch thick.
PRESENT
Today’s microscopic transistors animate the chips that go into our phones, computers and cars. The artificial intelligence boom is powered by chips of almost unimaginable scale. Jensen Huang, president of Nvidia, recently showed off the company’s new Rubin A.I. chip, with 336 billion transistors.
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