Migrants are fleeing their shelter lodging in New York Metropolis, anxious about potential ICE raids coinciding with Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
“It’s higher to go away earlier than,” Venezuelan migrant Kervin Nava, 31, stated exterior a Lengthy Island Metropolis shelter Sunday. “I’m making preparations, elsewhere.”
A Manhattan shelter resident known as Rafael described the widespread anxiousness. “It is in God’s palms, however there are individuals who have began leaving the lodges as a result of they’re scared,” he instructed The Put up. “When ICE got here a couple of weeks in the past they’d an arrest warrant for somebody who lived right here. Nothing they might do.”
Trump’s administration plans intensive deportations of undocumented immigrants, with Tom Homan, the newly appointed border czar, focusing on sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York initially. Homan knowledgeable Fox Information Sunday about reconsidering the timing after latest raid particulars leaked to the press.
“It is going to be an enormous raid all throughout the nation,” he instructed Fox on Friday. “Chicago is only one of many locations. We have got 24 [ICE] subject places of work throughout the nation. On Tuesday, ICE is lastly going to exit and do their job. We’ll take {the handcuffs} off ICE and allow them to go arrest felony aliens. That is what is going on to occur.”
The approaching raids have brought about important concern amongst shelter residents. “Some folks suppose they are going to are available buses and cargo folks up from the shelters, take them to the airport,” stated migrant Limame Gueye, 29, to The Put up.
Kevin Llena, a Colombian nationwide on the Roosevelt Resort, expressed fear about his work allow prospects. Venezuelan nationwide Rafael stays optimistic about Trump’s method to working migrants, whereas Francis, a Venezuelan mom, locations her belief in divine windfall.
Metropolis Corridor experiences shelter occupancy has decreased from 65,000 to beneath 51,000, resulting in closure of amenities at Randall’s Island and Floyd Bennett Area. A Metropolis Corridor consultant famous constant exit patterns because the election.
The scenario is difficult by the presence of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang working inside the shelter system since 2022, inflicting safety issues.
