Like so many immigrants, Holly Ondaan came to New York on an expired tourist visa. Since 2011, the Guyanese lived in a small apartment in the borough of Queens. Their daughter, who was born in the United States, was granted US citizenship.
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But then Ondaan fell behind with the rent. Landlord Dianna Lysius threatened to tell her to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who would deport her. “My money, or I’ll call ICE”, she is said to have written in one of many text messages.
The threat of denunciation backfired. The city human rights agency reported Lysius and in September a civil court sentenced her to a $ 17,000 fine. It was the first judgment in the US for discrimination against an illegally entered immigrant.
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“Proud of Our Diversity”: New York Solidarity Protests with Immigrants (2017)
Photo: EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ / AFP
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It won’t be the only one. The city administration issued one shortly afterwards regulationwhich made the judge’s verdict criminal for the whole of New York City: Anyone who harassed or “degraded” an immigrant by threatening him with deportation or abusing him with expressions such as “illegal” or “illegal alien” faces a fine of up to $ 250,000.
The unprecedented guideline for the USA goes even further: It is now also a criminal offense in New York to discriminate against foreigners because of a lack of English skills or their accent, to refuse to serve them in restaurants and to pay them lower wages – regardless of their actual immigration status .
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“No New Yorker should be disadvantaged”
“We are extremely proud of the diversity of our city,” said New York City Vice Mayor Phil Thompson. “This new regulation aims to ensure that no New Yorker is disadvantaged because of his or her immigration status or origin.”
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Who is allowed in, who has to go out? Immigrants at the New York immigration office
Foto: John Moore/ Getty Images
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For the 8.5 million metropolis, which has always viewed itself as the “melting pot” of the world, this in itself is hardly remarkable. But in Donald Trump’s America, where marginalization and insulting strangers were elevated to politics, this step has a signal effect.
Especially since this policy is becoming more and more brutal. Trump locks migrant children in camps. He even tightened legal immigration by decree. He apparently even toyed with the idea of reinforcing his border wall with Mexico with a trench full of poisonous snakes and alligators – and “shooting” migrants in the legs.
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But hundreds of “cities of refuge”, so-called sanctuary cities, are now countering this escalating harassment by supporting immigrants and officially protecting them from access by the state – i.e. the ICE agents.
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Meter high: Trump in front of a prototype of his border wall
Photo: Kevin Lamarque / REUTERS
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The list ranges from smaller communities like Middletown in Connecticut to major cities – Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Washington and New York, the most populous US metropolis. This is where America’s growing division under Trump is revealed.
“These hideous cities of refuge are a grave threat”
Because most of the migrant-friendly regions are in progressively oriented states on the east and west coasts. Conservative southern states such as Alamaba, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, but also Missouri and Iowa in the Midwest, on the other hand, have banned cities of refuge: there, an illegal immigrant has no chance of indulgence.
“These hideous cities of refuge are a grave threat to public and national security,” complains Trump. He tries to put the cities under pressure by threatening to block funds or order mass raids by the ICE.
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On the way to a new future: Immigrants arrive in Ellis Island in 1907
Foto: National Archives/ Getty Images
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