Communities of immigrants living in constant fear after federal raids

Tanya Rivero Image
Wednesday, February 5, 2025 3:28AM
Communities of immigrants living in constant fear after federal raids
Tanya Rivero spoke to immigrants living with fear and not leaving their homes after federal raids in their communities.

WEST NEW YORK (WABC) -- One of the words we keep hearing over and over again when it comes to immigration is "fear."

There was fear in Newark when agents raided a business, reportedly without a warrant.

There was fear in Westchester County when ICE agents served a warrant in Sleepy Hollow.

There was fear in the Bronx Tuesday morning when several people were taken into custody.

And there was fear in West New York when immigration officers went through an apartment building.

"I am filled with fear," says an undocumented single mother of three who understandably does not want to be identified when she spoke to Eyewitness News.

She works at night to take care of her children during the day, she said in Spanish.

But since a recent, federal raid nearby, she said she's afraid to return to her after-hours restaurant job.

"I am so scared they will take my children, that they will separate us," she said.

She is not alone, over 76 percent of residents in West New York identify as Hispanic, and almost 60 percent as foreign-born.

Among residents, Eyewitness News spoke with, even those who are citizens have fear over indiscriminate raids.

Emma Hernandez, a West New York resident said many people are scared and staying inside.

A sentiment echoed and was visible on the normally bustling Bergenline Avenue.

"Do people have a reason to be fearful or is some of this fear a result of a kind of hysteria that isn't warranted?" Eyewitness News Tanya Rivero asked the director of Make The Road New Jersey.

"First I will acknowledge that the fear they have is valid and I think the main message that we want to come across to our community is to remain calm, not cave into fear, because that's exactly what they want," Director Eliana Fernandez said.

The fear has an economic toll as well.

At the popular Farolito Restaurant, lunch became unusually slow.

A waitress at the restaurant said this weekend something happened that never happens, nobody came to eat.

The store owner of a beauty product store said her customers called to tell her they're too afraid to leave home and she said if her dwindling sales don't improve next month, she'll have to close.

A corrosive trend to what experts say is the $200 billion GDP of Hispanics in New York and New Jersey.

"My members are feeling right now that some of the restaurants and public facing businesses are seeing a slowdown in customers not coming into the business out of fear," said Carlos Medina, President and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

This mother's fear began long ago, escaping violence that killed much of her family in Tela, Honduras.

She said she hitchhiked with her children to Puebla, Mexico where she lived for years until a close friend's three children were kidnapped and killed by the Zeta cartel.

"They were young, 15 and 16 years old and they returned the bodies on Mother's Day," she said.

Fleeing that fresh horror, she crossed into the United States with a large group of migrants, settling in New Jersey two years ago.

She paid a lawyer $4,500 to get her working papers.

She said he did nothing.

"The immigration community is very vulnerable and susceptible to a lot of immigration fraud," said Make the Road New Jersey director Eliana Fernandez.

So much of a life lived in Peril, and now too afraid to leave her apartment for work, groceries, to send her children to school, or even play outside.

But as a mother, she says she has to protect her children.

The federal raid that surprised residents in a West New York building last weekend, is still very much on the minds of residents.

But city officials say that was a targeted raid, they were looking for a specific suspect they did not find and no one was arrested. And yet the fear persists.


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