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While specific figures for New York under the new federal administration are not yet available, media reports and press releases from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest there have been more than 340 arrests of migrants from January to mid-April across the state.
It was the afternoon of Jan. 21, and President Donald Trump had just taken office hours before.
That day, María’s husband picked up their four children from school, and on the way home, another vehicle hit them. María had been up late working the night shift cleaning offices from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Fulton, located in upstate Oswego County, New York. But calls to her cell phone woke her up.
“Mom, immigration came and took Dad away,” she recalled being told by her 15-year-old daughter, who was in the front seat of the family car at the time. After the collision, María said her husband called the police—and immigration showed up too, according to her daughter.
When María, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of jeopardizing their immigration process, got to the scene of the incident, her husband was already handcuffed.
He’s among an estimated hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested in New York so far this year, part of a pledge by the Trump administration—which just marked its first 100 days in office—to carry out mass deportations. Nationwide, the number of immigration arrests in February was the highest in any month in the last seven years, The Guardian reported.
While specific figures for New York under the new federal administration are not yet available, media reports and press releases from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest there have been more than 340 arrests of migrants from January to mid-April across the state.
“As part of its routine operations, ICE arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws,” an ICE spokesperson said via email, adding that the ICE’s field office in upstate Buffalo “is actively investigating immigration crimes in cities across northern, western and central New York State.”
María said her husband has no criminal history. In a press release last week, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that 75 percent of the 158,000 ICE arrests across the country since Trump took office were of immigrants with past convictions or pending charges. But media reports have documented an increasing number of people without records getting caught up by ICE.
Shadowed by the Statue of Liberty, New York has long been perceived as welcoming to immigrants. But the Trump administration’s crackdown is being felt even in New York City, where hundreds of ICE arrests have been made despite sanctuary laws that restrict local government cooperation with immigration authorities.
Mayor Eric Adams has also challenged one of the sanctuary laws that kicked ICE off Rikers Island more than a decade ago.
While the mayor says the move is intended to keep “dangerous people off our street,” city lawmakers slammed the change, saying it would make immigrant New Yorkers even more wary of cooperating with police or reporting crimes.
On April 21, after the City Council sued the Adams administration, New York Judge Mary Rosado blocked the mayor’s executive order allowing ICE agents onto Rikers Island, a decision the judge reiterated on April 25, extending the temporary restraining order.
During an interview on the Fox News’ show “My View With Lara Trump,” Mayor Eric Adams—who recently saw the corruption charges against him dropped at the behest of Trump’s Justice Department—referred to the city’s sanctuary laws as a “concept.”
“A lot of people don’t realize there is no law of sanctuary city. That’s not a law. It is a concept,” the mayor said in an interview on April 19.
Beyond city limits, New York State has a patchwork of sanctuary laws, which exist mostly in cities like Ithaca and the capital in Albany.
In 2020, during President Trump’s first term, New York immigrant advocates and state lawmakers introduced the New York for All Act, a bill that would prohibit state and local resources from being used to carry out immigration enforcement.
Similar legislation passed in neighboring states like New Jersey and Connecticut. But after years of pressure, this bill has not yet been approved.
Advocates who spoke with City Limits said the transformation of immigration enforcement in New York is evident. After arrests, people are placed in a detention center, meaning there has been an uptick not only in arrests but also detainees.
For a few weeks, María’s husband was detained at the ICE detention facility in Batavia, NY, before he was transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. He was deported to El Salvador on March 14, the day before the first three flights of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act departed.
“All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States, regardless of nationality,” an ICE spokesperson said.
After her husband’s arrest, María lost her cleaning job because she had to take care of her daughters at night. She just found a new job, but said it has been a rough time for everyone.
“He was not a delinquent man—he went from church to work,” María told City Limits in Spanish. “He was a good father. That hurt me the most.”
A chilling effect, as well as solidarity
Upstate advocates say they have been receiving more reports of immigrant arrests daily.
“We’ve seen activity at farms, lumber mills, restaurants, outside food distributions, churches, packing plants, construction sites,” said Jessica Maxwell, director of the Workers’ Center of Central New York. “Most seem to be targeting workers and trying to catch them in transit where they are most vulnerable.”
Sightings of Border Patrol, ICE, or Department of Homeland Security agents, combined with media reports and stories circulating on immigrant community channels, have created a “chilling effect” throughout these communities.
Advocates described that people have stopped going to the market, church, or social events out of fear, just as they did during the pandemic.
On April 25, a group of residents protested in Fulton “against ICE and in favor of due process,” said Erin Fiorini, a volunteer advocate for the Syracuse Immigrant and Refugee Defense Network.
“There are farms where nobody leaves anymore,” Maxwell said. “How long is that sustainable for people?”
“For a lot of our community, particularly in the North Country, it’s like a pandemic. They don’t go out to dinner. Soccer leagues have been canceled,” she added. “People are not going out for social events anymore. Not even the church.”
Amid this fear, volunteers, residents, and organizations like the farmworker-led grassroots group Alianza Agrícola have created networks to order and deliver groceries for those too fearful to leave their homes or workplaces.
The measures do not stop there.
“One of them [a farmworker] was telling me yesterday that everybody’s packing boxes and sending them back to Guatemala because people feel like it’s just like a ticking time bomb,” Maxwell said. “It’s just a matter of time, and they don’t want to lose everything. Don’t want to lose all their stuff.”
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