City Council Member Tiffany Cabán’s office hosted a special immigration resource fair and speaking program on Saturday, Sept. 27, on Steinway Street in Astoria, located between 25th Avenue and 28th Avenue.
Known as the “Stand Against ICE” resource fair and speaking program, the event was held as a way for community members to call for an end to ICE taking away immigrants, many of whom have been living in the United States for a long period of time.
The resource fair provided attendees with an opportunity to learn about how they could get involved in local organizing, what actions they can take to protect neighbors from ICE and get connected with support.
Multiple local elected officials also took part in the event, including New York State Senators Michael Gianaris and Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas.
“No matter what you see coming out of Washington, no matter what you hear coming out of the federal government, immigrants are, in fact, welcome here. This is New York City. This is a city of immigrants. My parents are immigrants. My wife is an immigrant. All my friends are immigrants and children of immigrants. There would be no New York City without the immigrant community,” Gianaris said. “What is going on right now is heartbreaking for so many of us, and all we can do is stand up and let immigrants know that what you see on TV is not the way a lot of us feel. You have representatives here that have your back. You have representatives here going to stand with you and fight with you on your behalf. And God willing, we’ll have a change in Washington sooner than later, and a change in policy.”
Gianaris said there have been many instances where kids on their way to public schools in the area have wound up being detained by ICE and separated from their families. He also said that in some of these instances, the kids are taken halfway across the country, with parents occasionally not even being informed about this.
“We are a community of immigrants, and no matter where we come from, no matter who we are, no matter what we believe, the thing that unites us is that as Queens people, as New Yorkers, when people want to come into our neighborhoods, when people want to hurt our family and friends, we stand up, and that’s what we’re doing here today,” Gonzalez said. “I know it is a hard moment. I know the deck is stacked against us and I know that every single day it’s an incredible fear with what we see on social media and on the news, but in those hard moments, I want you all to remember everyone who showed up today, because even for the people who didn’t, there are so many more of us who are ready to stand up and fight, and that’s what we’re here to do.”
González-Rojas discussed the recent incident of the ICE agent who shoved a woman to the ground, as well as when she and ten other local elected officials were arrested while protesting outside Federal Plaza. She said they were there to check the conditions of the holding facility following a court order that said they were inhumane. Despite being elected officials trying to do their jobs, they were refused access, with González-Rojas noting they could hear the sound of the ICE agents duct taping the door closed.
“This is not the country my father came here for. I am also a daughter of an immigrant. This is not who we are,” González-Rojas said. “We’re out here to send a message that we will not take this. We do not accept this violence in our communities.”
Cabán’s office held this Stand Against ICE event in collaboration with multiple local groups, including Malikah, the Center for the Integration and Advancement of New Americans, Inc. (CIANA) and the Astoria Worker Project.
“This neighborhood is home to one of the largest North African immigrant communities in the entire United States. It is a working-class community. It is an undocumented community. It is a powerful and vibrant community,” Malikah Executive Director Rana Abdelhamid said. “This community, in a post-9/11 context, was surveilled. It was under the NYPD mapping program, because we were seen as criminals. We were seen as suspects. There was a target on every single person’s back. People were deported, people were detained, no questions asked. And I share this story because most people do not know that ice is not a forever institution.”
Abdelhamid called for the abolishment of ICE. She was critical of how the institution operated when it was established in the wake of 9/11, saying it heavily profiled certain communities.
The Stand Against ICE resource fair and speaking program was held as part of a larger citywide event meant to represent a day of action. The citywide event was organized by the NYC Council Progressive Caucus.
