via Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer on Instagram
Oct. 25, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
The city will be setting up a “Day of Visibility” Friday aimed at informing New Yorkers on their rights against discrimination and harassment in response to anti-immigrant flyers recently seen in the neighborhood.
Representatives from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, in tandem with employees of Sunnyside Community Services and other city agencies, will be stationed in various locations through out the neighborhood Friday and will be handing out literature on immigrants’ rights.
They will distribute materials aimed at educating New Yorkers on their rights under the City Human Rights Law, on how to report discrimination, and the available resources, protections and services the city can offer.
The event comes about three weeks after flyers were found posted on an electrical cabinet on Skillman Avenue and 35th Street urging citizens to report undocumented persons to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The flyers said it is a citizen’s “civic duty” to do so.
The flyers went viral after Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer shared a video of himself to social media ripping the poster apart and encouraging people to do the same.
“All immigrants are welcome here,” a caption accompanying the video reads. “If you see these, feel free to take them down. Be a sanctuary neighbor.”
It is not known who put up the flyers in Sunnyside. The posters, however, have been traced to Vanguard America, a white supremacist group. Several versions of the flyer have also appeared in multiple cities across the states.
