As Washington celebrated Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, New York City’s immigrant-rich communities are expressing concern over the president’s mass deportation plans.
The rumble of the No. 7 train is a familiar sound in Jackson Heights, where street vendors line the sidewalks, woven into the fabric of New York.
Many of the vendors are immigrants themselves, now feeling targeted by President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders,” said Trump at his inauguration. “As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions.”
Among the executive orders signed by Trump at the Oval Office Monday night is one ending birthright citizenship. Such a move, though, is expected to face significant legal hurdles.
Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, any person born within the territory of the U.S. is a U.S. citizen.
Harold Solis of Make The Road NY says people have been hearing about Trump’s immigration plans for quite some time.
“They’ve been hearing the rhetoric not just during the campaign trail but in the last few months where there have been promises of mass raids of this massive deportation operation,” Solis said.
Advocates say about 23,000 street vendors, a majority of them immigrants, are at a higher risk of contact with ICE and potential deportation despite New York City’s sanctuary city status.
Solis says adding to their anxiety is whether those laws will be fully enforced at the local level.
Mayor Mayor Eric Adams attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington, just days after he met with the president in Florida last week.
Last month, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala reportedly set a woman on fire on the subway. Last June, a migrant from Ecuador was charged with raping a 13-year-old in Queens.
Some say the mayor has sounded sympathetic towards Trump’s deportation agenda.
“It’s incredibly frustrating and disturbing that New York City’s Black mayor that he wants to go the inauguration of a white supremacist on the day that he should be observing Martin Luther King Jr.” said City Council Member Alex Aviles.
Adams has said he will follow the sanctuary city laws, but has also called for those laws to be loosened.