Crowds of demonstrators including undocumented people took to the streets of downtown Manhattan on Thursday in a fierce show of resistance against Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
The rally, which started at Foley Square and in front of the field office of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), came amid the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdowns.
Speaking to the Guardian, Sergio Uzurin, a spokesperson for the grassroots movement NYC Ice Watch, said: “We’re helping to … escort undocumented folks so that they are not afraid.”
“As much as the administration is trying to spread an atmosphere of fear, today is proving that some people are undocumented and unafraid to speak out about the social catastrophe that these deportations are causing,” Uzurin added.
A 31-year-old undocumented man from Nicaragua who identified himself as Begea said: “We just need an opportunity to show what we could do … We are not criminals. We are just people coming to this country, looking for an opportunity, the opportunity we [lost] in our countries.”
“It’s negative and really hard, what’s happening to us right now … We need the space to try to be better, to help our families, to support [and do] something good for this country,” Begea added.
Echoing similar sentiments, an undocumented man from Oaxaca, Mexico, who identified himself as Alfredo Gayta said through a translator: “I am here to raise our voices against what is happening in New York. We have been treated as criminals and we are not criminals.”
Wearing a white T-shirt with the Spanish words “Mis organ y mi sangre no tienen frontera” or “My organs and my blood have no borders”, Gayta said: “When we go out on the streets and are just walking, people would shout for us to leave the country, for us to go back to where we came from. We don’t really take it personally, it doesn’t really bother us. We just leave it in the hand of God.”
Gayta went on to add: “The message that I want to give Trump is to give us an opportunity. We are here to work. He can see that we are not bad people. If he just gives us an opportunity, we can showcase that.”
Throughout Foley Square, protesters, with some donning green bandanas around their faces, held handwritten signs that read “Melt Ice” as well as: “To get our neighbors, you have to get through us!”
Dave Schmauch, a member of the Freedom Socialist party, held a sign with a message to New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, who has in recent months taken a hardened stance against immigration. “Immigrants are not your get out of jail card!” the sign read, in reference to Adams’s own federal corruption charges, which the newest Trump-appointed justice department has ordered prosecutors to drop.
“Today’s protest is just the beginning of what is starting to coalesce into a large, spirited, New York City immigrant solidarity movement,” said Shmauch, adding: “I want everybody to know that we say immigrants are welcome here. New York is an immigrant town and we are going to support and defend our neighbors.”
Following several chants including: “Deny, defend, depose, all Nazis got to go!” and: “Every gender, every race, punch a Nazi in the face,” at least 100 protesters, with some beating drums, marched from downtown through the city’s upscale SoHo district, flanked by a heavy police presence that appeared to be twice their numbers.
At least six arrests were made, with at least a dozen police appearing to surround one of the protesters as he was pinned to the ground. Around him, other protesters yelled: “Let him go!”
Thursday’s rally came as Adams, a moderate Democrat, announced he would reopen an Ice office at the city’s Rikers Island jail. In 2015, an Ice office closed at the jail under the city’s sanctuary laws that impose limitations on the city’s ability to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Also on Thursday, the newly appointed attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced that the federal government was suing New York over its immigration policies, accusing state officials of having “chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens”.
At one point during the march, Begea stopped in front of the Jacob K Javits federal office building with a crowd of protesters, journalists and police looking on.
Accompanied by a fellow protester who repeated after Begea in a call-and-response chant, Begea introduced himself to the crowd, at first quietly before his voice grew louder upon hearing the echoes of the protesters.
“My name is Begea. I am a Nicaraguan citizen and I came to this country looking for an opportunity and freedom that I didn’t have in my country,” he said as he became visibly emotional.
“We are only asking for the opportunity to be able to express our talent, our ability, to contribute to this country a grain of our help. We do not want to be treated like criminals. We want them to treat us like human beings,” he added.
At the end of his chant, Begea raised his fist in the air.
“La libertad,” he yelled.
“La libertad,” the protesters yelled back.
