NEW YORK — Top New York officials pledged to defend immigrants’ rights Thursday amid reports that the Trump administration will carry out nationwide immigration raids this weekend.
City and state officials shared hotline numbers and know-your-rights bulletins as they condemned the planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids — which will reportedly target at least 2,000 people — as “deplorable” and “inhumane.”
“I think it is to create a culture of fear and division,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday afternoon on MSNBC. “I think it’s a political act to convince a lot of people in America that immigrants are the problem.”
ICE is expected to begin the raids in at least 10 major cities on Sunday, targeting thousands of immigrants who have been ordered to be deported, The New York Times reported. Agents will also sweep up other immigrants who are present for the arrests even if they are not among the targets, according to the paper.
President Donald Trump first announced the raids with a June 17 Twitter post, saying authorities would start removing “millions of illegal aliens.” But he said days later that the operation had been delayed to give Congress a chance to address problems at the southern U.S. border.
New York officials vowed to protect immigrants from ICE and urged people concerned about the raids to contact city or state agencies for help. De Blasio said those in the city can call 311, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed to the state’s New Americans Hotline at 1-800-566-7636.
In a video posted to Twitter, city Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Bitta Mostofi advised immigrants that they do not have to open the door for ICE, sign anything or consent to a search.
“New York City, your city, is committed to standing with you,” Mostofi said in the video.
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Some ICE agents worry the raids will not be as effective because many immigrants have learned not to open the door when authorities come to their homes and to escape arrest in other ways, the Times reported.
The planned raids have reportedly been controversial even within the Trump administration. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan urged ICE to call it off early last month because he worried about separating immigrant parents from their U.S. citizen children, the Times reported. But Acting ICE Director Mark Morgan pushed Trump to go ahead with it, according to the paper.
Immigrant activists have been defiant in the face of the raid threats, with some saying that they are a political tactic meant to scare immigrants. State Attorney General Letitia James echoed that criticism Thursday, accusing the Trump administration of “using migrant families as a political bargaining chip with Congressional leaders.”
“I will stand up against any threatened incursions on our state’s civil rights because, in America, we value our immigrants,” James said in a statement.