Immigrant advocates urged New Yorkers Sunday to continue resisting federal immigration enforcement — a day after protesters clashed with the NYPD while trying to block ICE from conducting operations in Chinatown.
And they pressed NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to drop charges against people arrested during the altercations. Police said several people were taken into custody after a group blocked the street and multiple exits, and threw debris, but haven’t provided a count or detailed specific charges. Messages to City Hall this weekend haven’t yet been returned.
“ We encourage folks not to engage in a way that is violent and in a way that will give them an excuse to come down even harder,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told a gathering at Howard Street and Centre Street Sunday, where a day earlier protesters massed to disrupt an anticipated raid.
The crowd gathered on Saturday obstructed one-way traffic with a pile of garbage to block vehicles from leaving a garage before police erected barricades and ultimately clashed with the group.
“ Some people randomly were maced, others were thrown to the ground violently. For what? New York City has been a sanctuary city for decades,” Murad Awawdeh, head of the New York Immigration Coalition, said at Sunday’s rally. “Every single thing that people love about New York City is because of who makes it.”
Protestors Sunday vowed to continue resisting federal immigration enforcement actions, at the site where a day before demonstrators clashed with police as they tried to block a garage used by ICE.
New York City's sanctuary laws prohibit direct cooperation with federal agencies for immigration enforcement. But the NYPD has frequently responded to disruptions surrounding immigration actions and protests.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it called the NYPD Saturday after “agitators” wearing backpacks, face masks and goggles showed up to block a garage where ICE was located, and after “hundreds of violent rioters" arrived. It accused people who advertised the ICE officers’ location on social media of putting its officers in danger.
”We will not apologize for stepping up and protecting one another, so I want you to understand what is happening and we'll continue to happen in New York City.” Williams said at Sunday's rally. “We are immensely proud of New Yorkers who stepped up every time ICE agents have come in and tried to abuse our neighbors. And I want to encourage all New Yorkers to continue to do the same.”
Members of immigrant advocacy groups who had rushed to the scene on Saturday said they were seeing considerable interest from the public in their cause.
Hannah Stauss, an organizer with Hands Off NYC, said the organization has had to turn away members of the public from its trainings — and that the standoffs with federal agents have the potential to alter outcomes.
“You find that, even though these are big, strong men with guns, they get a lot less bold, because there are a lot more of us than there are them,” she said.
The apparent planned immigration operation in Chinatown would have followed another, in October, where federal authorities said they detained more than a dozen people amid a crackdown targeting counterfeiters. That raid, too, drew large protests, including from several onlookers.
It also came barely more than a week after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — who famously confronted President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan in March at the State Capitol — had a surprisingly cordial meeting with Trump at the White House. Mamdani had described the October raid as an “abuse of federal power by the Trump administration: more about fear than justice, more about politics than safety.”
DHS didn’t say in its statement whether it’s expecting further operations in Chinatown.
Awawdeh said that with Saturday’s protest, “New Yorkers stepped up.”
“And New Yorkers defended one another making sure that no one was taken and disappeared from their communities and their families,” he said.
