New York

Immigration Arrests Prompt Fear That Mass Deportations Loom

Published

11 months ago

January 25, 2025

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.

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New York

Vote For the Best Metropolitan Diary Entry of 2025

Published

17 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Vote For the Best Metropolitan Diary Entry of 2025

Every week since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has published stories by, and for, New Yorkers of all ages and eras (no matter where they live now): anecdotes and memories, quirky encounters and overheard snippets that reveal the city’s spirit and heart.

For the past four years, we’ve asked for your help picking the best Diary entry of the year. Now we’re asking again.

We’ve narrowed the field to the five finalists here. Read them and vote for your favorite. The author of the item that gets the most votes will receive a print of the illustration that accompanied it, signed by the artist, Agnes Lee.

The voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21. You can change your vote as many times as you’d like until then, but you may only pick one. Choose wisely.

Click “VOTE” to choose your favorite Metropolitan Diary entry of 2025, and come back on Sunday, Dec. 28, to see which one our readers picked as their favorite.

Two Stops

Published on Feb. 16

Dear Diary:

It was a drizzly June night in 2001. I was a young magazine editor and had just enjoyed what I thought was a very blissful second date — dinner, drinks, fabulous conversation — with our technology consultant at a restaurant in Manhattan.

I lived in Williamsburg at the time, and my date lived near Murray Hill, so we grabbed a cab and headed south on Second Avenue.

“Just let me out here,” my date said to the cabby at the corner of 25th Street.

We said our goodbyes, quick and shy, knowing that we would see each other at work the next day. I was giddy and probably grinning with happiness and hope.

“Oh boy,” the cabby said, shaking his head as we drove toward Brooklyn. “Very bad.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in horror.

“He doesn’t want you to know exactly where he lives,” the cabby said. “Not a good sign.”

I spent the rest of the cab ride in shock, revisiting every moment of the date.

Happily, it turned out that my instinct about it being a great date was right, and the cabby was wrong. Twenty-four years later, my date that night is my husband, and I know that if your stop is first, it’s polite to get out so the cab can continue in a straight line to the next stop.

— Ingrid Spencer

Ferry Farewell

Published on April 6

Dear Diary:

On a February afternoon, I met my cousins at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Their spouses and several of our very-grown children were there too. I brought Prosecco, a candle, a small speaker to play music, photos and a poem.

We were there to recreate the wedding cruise of my mother, Monica, and my stepfather, Peter. They had gotten married at City Hall in August 1984. She was 61, and he, 71. It was her first marriage, and his fourth.

I was my mother’s witness that day. It was a late-in-life love story, and they were very happy. Peter died in 1996, at 82. My mother died last year. She was 100.

Peter’s ashes had waited a long time, but finally they were mingled with Monica’s. The two of them would ride the ferry a last time and then swirl together in the harbor forever. Cue the candles, bubbly, bagpipes and poems.

Two ferry workers approached us. We knew we were in trouble: Open containers and open flames were not allowed on the ferry.

My cousin’s husband, whispering, told the workers what we were doing and said we would be finished soon.

They walked off, and then returned. They said they had spoken to the captain, and they ushered us to the stern for some privacy. As the cup of ashes flew into the water, the ferry horn sounded two long blasts.

— Caitlin Margaret May

Unacceptable

Published on May 4

Dear Diary:

I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.

When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.

The man behind the counter looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

— Richie Powers

Teresa

Published on Sept. 14

Dear Diary:

It was February 2013. With a foot of snow expected, I left work early and drove from New Jersey warily as my wipers squeaked and snow and ice stuck to my windows.

I drove east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was tied up worse than usual. Trucks groaned on either side of my rattling Toyota. My fingers were cold. My toes were colder. Got to get home before it really comes down, I thought to myself.

By the time I got home to my little red bungalow a stone’s throw from the Throgs Neck Bridge, the snow was already up to my ankles.

Inside, I took off my gloves, hat, scarf, coat, sweater, pants and snow boots. The bed, still unmade, was inviting me. But first, I checked my messages.

There was one from Teresa, the 92-year-old widow on the corner.

“Call me,” she said, sounding desperate.

I looked toward the warm bed, but … Teresa. There was a storm outside, and she was alone.

On went the pants, the sweater, the coat, the scarf, the boots and the gloves, and then I went out the door.

The snow was six inches deep on the sidewalks, so I tottered on tire tracks in the middle of the street. The wind stung my face. When I got to the end of the block, I pounded on her door.

“Teresa!” I called. No answer. “Teresa!” I called again. I heard the TV blaring. Was she sprawled on the floor?

I went next door and called for Kathy.

“Teresa can’t answer the door,” I said. “Probably fell.”

Kathy had a key. In the corner of her neat living room, Teresa, in pink sweatpants and sweaters, was sitting curled in her armchair, head bent down and The Daily News in her lap.

I snapped off the TV.

Startled, she looked up.

“Kathy! Neal!” she said. “What’s a five-letter word for cabbage?”

— Neal Haiduck

Nice Place

Published on July 20

Dear Diary:

When I lived in Park Slope over 20 years ago, I once had to call an ambulance because of a sudden, violent case of food poisoning.

Two paramedics, a man and a woman, entered our third-floor walk-up with a portable chair. Strapping me in, the male medic quickly inserted an IV line into my arm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his partner circling around and admiring the apartment.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” she said. “Do you own it?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, all but unconscious.

Once I was in the ambulance, she returned to her line of inquiry.

“Do you mind me asking how much you paid for your apartment?”

“$155,000,” I croaked.

“Wow! You must have bought during the recession.”

“Yeah” I said.

They dropped me off at Methodist Hospital, where I was tended to by a nurse as I struggled to stay lucid.

At some point, the same medic poked her head into the room with one last question:

“You wouldn’t be wanting to sell any time soon, would you?”

— Melinda DeRocker

Illustrations by Agnes Lee.

New York

They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

Published

5 days ago

December 8, 2025

Press Room

They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

‘Part of the job’

Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.

He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.

Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”

He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.

A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.

But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.

Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.

Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.

And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.

After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.

But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.

The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.

His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.

Mr. Guity helps care for his 93-year-old grandmother, Juanita Guity.

M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.

In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.

“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.

Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.

An Uptick in Subway Strikes

A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.

Source: Federal Transit Administration.

Note: Transit agencies report “Major Safety and Security Events” to the F.T.A.’s National Transit Database. The Times’s counts include incidents categorized as rail collisions with persons, plus assaults, homicides and attempted suicides with event descriptions mentioning a train strike. For assaults, The Times used an artificial intelligence model to identify relevant descriptions and then manually reviewed the results.

Bianca Pallaro/The New York Times

San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.

Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.

The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.

But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.

“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”

New York

Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

Published

2 weeks ago

November 30, 2025

Press Room

Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

transcript

Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.

: [chanting] “ICE out of New York.”
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Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.

By Jorge Mitssunaga

November 30, 2025