NYC NOW - April 1, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Police are investigating what they say is an unprovoked assault involving a woman attacked with a hammer in Central Park, which occurred in the early hours of Monday morning. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service forecasts a rainy week ahead. Also, of the thousands of migrants arriving in New York City, nearly half of new immigrants are from places like Africa, Asia, and Europe, according to immigration court data. WNYC’s Tiffany Hanssen speaks with reporter Arya Sundaram who has analyzed the data. Finally, spring is here, and WNYC culture reporters Ryan Kailath and Precious Fondren have the scoop on cool activities for April, offering their top suggestions for things to do.

NYC. Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, April 1st. Here's the midday news for Michael Hill. Police are investigating what they say was an unprovoked assault on a woman in Central Park overnight. NYPD officials say the 39-year-old woman was walking near west. 64th Street in Center Drive around midnight when a man hit her in the back with a hammer.

He alleged he told her, quote, nobody's going to find you here before hitting her. Police say the man sped away on a moped and has not yet been identified. The woman refused medical attention at the scene, the police say. The incident comes after a string of reported random attacks on women in Manhattan that have gone viral on social media. Police arrested a man in one of those attacks last week. This week's forecast is not an April Fool's joke. It's going to be a gloomy, soggy star to the month, including rain into Thursday and 40-degree temperatures until the weekend.

National Weather Service meteorologist James Connolly says the sun will not shine tomorrow or the next day. I think Thursday's probably the earliest that the sun comes out. The rain did start intermittently this morning. Tomorrow and Wednesday will bring heavier rain, totaling about two inches. and then on Thursday may bring even lighter showers there. The damp weather follows one of the wettest marchers on record with more than nine inches of rain measured in Central Park. 50s, we sit now with light rain.

We can expect more early this afternoon, cloudy and 54-4 high. And then tonight a slim chance of rain overnight in 47. Our temperatures will reach just into the upper 40s for highs with rain tomorrow. It will be gusty. Rain on Wednesday and rain again on Thursday. Friday, we dry out. Stay close. There's more after the break. Here on WNYC, I'm Tiffany Hanson. Of the thousands of migrants arriving in New York City, many are from Latin American countries. But an increasing number of new immigrants, nearly half, are from places like Africa, Asia, and Europe.

That's according to immigration court data. WNYC's ARIA's ARIA Sundrum analyzed the data, and is here with us to talk about it. Hi, Are you. Hi, Tiffany. So let's dig in a little bit on these changing trends. Start us off first with just an overview of the situation if you can. You looked at the data, so what is it telling us? So like you said, Central and South American migrants have long been the vast majority of cases in New York City's immigration courts. I mean, that's here in New York City and nationwide. But those demographics are changing. So in 2021, about we saw three quarters of, you know, local immigration cases were from Central and South American migrants. But by last year, that share was half. And that's because we're seeing new migrants come from other regions. And just to

step back for a second, to give you a sense of what exactly this data is that I'm looking at, this is new immigration court filings data that is available from an institute over at Syracuse University called the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. And they get this data through federal public records requests. And what we're seeing, at least here in New York, are pretty big jumps in the number of African and Asian migrants that are ending up in New York City. So let's take Asian migrants, for example. They used to make up about 14% of new immigration court cases here. Now they make up nearly a quarter of those cases. African migrants, you know, used to be 3% of new immigration court cases in New York City, now at 11%. And we're also

seeing slightly more immigrants coming from the Caribbean and, you're Europe, too. So do we know what's driving this change? The changes here reflect the growing diversity among migrants that are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. And here's how one immigration expert put it to me, Musafar Chishti. He's a senior fellow at the Immigration Policy Institute and director of the Institute's office over at NYU's law school. You're just seeing the downstream manifestation of a phenomenon that has been unfolding at the border in the last two years. And I think the question here really is, why is then this change happening at the border? And what Chishji and other experts told me is this is because there are political and economic pressures that are

just intensifying in other parts of the world. And the reasons vary from country to country. I mean, look at China, there's high youth unemployment. African migration here has really increased, meanwhile, as Europe has tightened its border restrictions. But it's also because of U.S. border policies and at least perception about them. You know, experts tell me that word is spreading, that more migrants are being granted entry at the southern border, that if you say you're seeking asylum, you'll get in. And because of all the various backlogs we have, you'll be allowed to stay for a lot longer than in the past. You've reported that some of the city's largest and fastest growing migrant groups are flying under the radar. So tell us specifically, what does that mean? Who are the groups

and why is it happening? So some of these large and fast-growing migrant groups are people from China, India, Uzbekistan, Georgia. And these migrants, by and large, aren't really showing up in city shelters. You know, Chinese migrants, for example, are the third largest group in New York City's immigration courts. But there's only about 500 Chinese migrants that are staying in city shelters right now. And that's less than 1% of the total migrant population in city shelters. You know, Africans, for example, are also a major group.

But as we've discussed before, they're pretty large and growing presence in city shelters. And so what I'm hearing, at least, from immigrant aid workers on the group, is that these groups are mostly making the way to the city on their own, you know, avoiding the city's strange shelter network. And for some of these groups, New York City was actually the main hub, according to my analysis. So, you know, more than half of the new immigration court cases filed by Chinese, Uzbek and Senegalese migrants across the whole country were located in New York city. And several of like these nationality groups from West Africa, China, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ecuador, have had pretty long-standing presence in New York City,

and that's why immigration experts tell me they might be flocking here. You mentioned a little bit about the different places that people are staying once they arrive here. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? And can you also maybe elaborate a little bit on the new and different ways that migrants are actually getting here? Immigration aid workers on the ground are telling me that many migrants are coming on their own planes, for their own bus tickets. They're not taking the buses that were chartered here by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. You know, they're staying and integrating into their immigrant communities, maybe staying with a friend or a relative or a friend of a friend and their overcrowded apartment basement, for example. Here's how Chisci put it from the Migration Policy Institute.

The old rule to people get into New York, organically getting integrated through their village networks, is still, happening. So even as these new phenomena and trends take place, the busing, the many migrants and shelters, there's this other older path for new immigrants to the city that's been going on for decades, centuries even, and continues today. All right, thanks for digging in on this data for us. We appreciate it. Thanks, Tiffany. Arias Sundaram is a reporter with WNYC's Race and Justice Unit. You can read her reporting right now over at Gothamist.com. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. Do you feel it? The spring weather beckoning you to explore New York City.

With everything there is to check out, it can be a bit overwhelming deciding what to do, especially without burning a hole in your pocket. Well, luckily, we have WD&MIC culture reporters Ryan Kyloth and Preciousandran, who are keyed into the cool stuff to get into, and they're here now to give us some suggestions for things to do in April. Okay, Ryan, let's start with you. What's your cherry blossom thing about? Yeah, apologies to my esteemed colleague, precious, but I'm going to be greedy and take two here. I love this time of year so much. So April, little touch and go weather-wise, right? So I like to see the cherry blossoms that are not in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or the Bronx. Okay, yeah, tell us about it.

Well, that's where everybody goes, right? It's spectacular, but also so crowded. So I literally have a list on my phone called Other Cherry Blossoms. And I'll give you three of my favorites. There are many. First, the West Side Highway Bike Path, you know, pretty crowded downtown. But once you get uptown to like 100th Street, the railings drop away. It's just you and the water and this canopy of cherry trees that last for like a mile long stretch up to 125th Street.

So every year, it's a spring tradition for me. I like to bike up there. It's glorious. It's called the Cherry Walk, if you want to look it up online. Two of my others are snug harbor on Staten Island, the garden grounds there. And then Roosevelt Island has this amazing set of trees on the west side. and, of course, another gorgeous backdrop. Okay, so that's my warm weather example.

Yeah, what's the other one? But it's still April, right? Like, it might be cold and wet. You don't really ever know. So one of my favorite tricks, especially when I'm feeling broke, is to see performances at Juilliard. So Juilliard has hundreds of performances every year, you know, everything they do, recitals, music recitals, dance performances. They'll put on entire plays. Most of them are free on Juilliard's campus.

Some cost like a few bucks. Some are like 30 bucks at Carnegie Hall. And the thing is these students, right, they're the best in the world at what they do. So as soon as they graduate, they walk across the street to Lincoln Center. And it costs hundreds of dollars to see them at the Philharmonic or the ballet. But in New York, we have the privilege. We can catch them early when there's students at Juilliard and see them for free or next to nothing. So that is my second recommendation.

If it's cold and wet, check out the Juilliard Performance Calendar online. Okay, precious, I've been to my fair share of trivia nights, but I would probably have to do some research before heading to this one. It's a trivia night devoted to Sex and the City. Yes, we all know about the general trivia nights, but this is like for the pop culture fans. It's the Sex and the City Trivia Night. There's a couple different dates throughout April, but the next one is April 10th. It's going to be at Poco, NYC, and the East Village.

It starts around 730. It's free to sign up. You can play by yourself or you can play with your friends. If you are going to play with a group of people, it's best if one of you just signs up for all the tickets and you come prepared that way. It's going to be five rounds, about 90 minutes long. There's, I think, 65 questions total, and it's going to be like easy things, like what color is Miranda's hair throughout the series, and then also more complicated things. What's Carrie's favorite drink?

What shoes were she wearing when she was robbed in an episode? So fun things like that. If you're not familiar with the show and you do want to go and you don't have the Max app, it's also coming to Netflix on April 1st. So you have plenty of time to prepare. Again, the next event is April 10th. And I won't be there at that one, but I'll be at the next one on April 18th. I've convinced my friends to go. They know their homework for the next couple of weeks.

So folks want to meet Precious Fondra. They know where they go. WNIC reporters Ryan Kailoff and Precious Fondra. And you can check out their full list of affordable things to do in April at our news website, Gothamist. Thanks to you both for helping to inspire some springtime adventures. See you out there. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC.

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