NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Immigrant Families Split at ICE Check-in, Tussle Between Rep. Nadler’s Aide and Federal Officers, Modular Buildings Could Fix NY’s Housing Crisis, Trump Administration’s Threat to NJ’s Affordable Housing, and Summer Constellations

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Immigrants appearing for required check-ins with a private contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Lower Manhattan are being arrested instead. Plus, security camera footage shows Rep. Jerry Nadler's staffer being handcuffed last week by Homeland Security police. Also, modular construction becomes the latest attempt to address New York State's affordability crisis. Meanwhile, multi-family, energy efficient affordable housing could become harder to build in New Jersey under the Trump administration. And finally, New York City’s summer stargazing begins!

Immigrant families are split up at an ice check-in in Manhattan. A newly obtained video shows a tussle between Representative Jerry Nadler's staffer and federal officers. State leaders hope modular buildings could fix New York's housing crisis, the Trump administration's threat to New Jersey's affordable housing, and some are constellations in the night sky. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jinné Pierre. The Trump administration's immigration crackdown seems to be taking a new approach in New York City.

city. Immigrants appearing for required check-ins with a private contractor for U.S. immigration and customs enforcement in Lower Manhattan are being arrested instead. Amber Mujica Rodriguez sobbed as her husband was whisked away in a van. The federal contractor is called Buy Incorporated. They run a program allowing immigrants to appear for scheduled check-ins instead of being detained. A number of families exiting their office say they received messages this. week telling them to appear within the next day and to bring their children with them. And they say that's unusual.

Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not comment. Speaking of Homeland Security, Representative Jerry Nadler's office is sharing security camera footage with WMYC that shows the lead-up to his staffer being handcuffed last week by the agency's officers. WMYC's ARIA Sundaram explains what the video shows. The security camera video doesn't have any audio, but it's shows a DHS officer attempting to push past the staffer to enter a private area of Nadler's Manhattan office. The officer pushes his chest against the staffer. Meanwhile, the staffer extends her arms to block the officer from entering and then pushes the officer away. The officer

then handcuffs her. Nadler's office says the video footage supports their claim that it was the federal officers who instigated the conflict. DHS did not immediately comment on the new video. In a previous statement, DHS said the officers were trying to conduct a security check, and detained one person who blocked them from doing so. New York State's latest budget is allocating a lot of money for modular construction. Think sections of homes pre-built in a factory. WMYC's Arun Vanacopal explains how this is just the latest attempt to address the state's affordability crisis. So what's modular?

If the conventional construction site brings to mind lots of carpenters and plumbers, drilling, banging things, lugging two-by-fours, The modular construction site is different. Think of it more like shuffling a bunch of big Legos around. Each of those Legos represents a part of your home, the bathroom or the kitchen, which is made in a factory beforehand, then transported to its final address and clicked into place. According to developers and the management from McKinsey and Company, it's nearly twice as fast and 25% cheaper and almost entirely absent from the city's housing mix.

Jason Van Nest is the executive director of the Center for Offsite Construction at New York Institute of Technology. And he says modular... It just hasn't found traction yet in America, even though we've been trying to do it for decades. He says modular housing is big in Japan and in Europe, but will need significant investments to spur similar growth here. It also needs to overcome serious doubts. A decade ago, some of the biggest names in real estate and development said modular construction was the... answered to New York's affordable housing crisis. Here's Mary Ann Gilmartin, then CEO at Forest City Ratner. She was speaking at one of the city's premier civic gatherings, the Municipal Arts Society's

annual summit in 2013. Just as the elevator transformed the skyline, we hope that modular will change the way we build housing. At the time, Forest City Ratner was building B2, a 32-story high rise next to the Barclay Center, built as the tallest modular residential. building in the world, with fully half its units designated as affordable housing. However, the project was plagued by cost overruns and other problems, and the company abruptly exited the business of modular housing. The area is once again in the news because the subsequent owner of that site is way behind schedule on delivering affordable housing, and state officials have failed to impose the fines they're contractually obligated to. James McIntyre is the outgoing

chief strategy officer at Inclusive Prosperity Capital, a firm that helps support funding for sustainable housing. And he worked on the financing of the B2 project. If it had been a shining moment and they had collapsed the cost of building and they really cracked the nut on modular in New York City, I think building construction techniques would have dramatically changed over the last 10 years. Since then, housing has only gotten more expensive and proponents are hoping that the industry and government are more open to the promise of modular. A spokesperson for the State Department of Homes and Community Renewal says the $50 million in funding would test cutting-edge innovations in factory-built homes and create meaningful, affordable home ownership solutions across the state.

That's WMYC's Aroom Vanekapal. All right, so we just heard one of the ways New York State plans to fix its affordable housing crisis. After the break, we head to New Jersey, where new housing could be under threat by the Trump administration. Stay close. Later this month, Madison, New Jersey will open the state's first multifamily energy-efficient affordable housing development. It's been years in the making, but projects like it might be a lot harder to build under the Trump administration. WMYC's Mike Hayes has more. Picture this.

All your appliances powered by your own solar panel system. your apartment constructed so you lose less heat in the winter and less AC in the summer. And utility bills projected to be just a few dollars a month. That's what Kadeja Smith and her family will be getting when they move into the forum in Madison, New Jersey in a few weeks. Number one, it's efficient, it's affordable, and it's brand new, it's compact. So, meaning everybody's going to know everybody. Kedija and her children are one of three dozen families that won a housing lottery for an apartment at Madison. I went from homeless shelter to finding a place, like trying to look for a place.

And even then finding a place, still couldn't afford to move in. We come from that. And I'm very grateful that. We no longer have to go back there. It took Madison 10 years to open this development. And the energy efficiency part only happened thanks to a $2 million earmark from Congress. But the Trump administration is on a spree to reduce spending, and its 2026 budget proposal includes more than $26 billion in cuts to these types of housing and community development programs. That's making developers like Rich Martoglio, whose company RPM built the forum uneasy about how they're going to fund more projects like this.

I don't think anyone knows for sure what's going to happen. I think that's one of the things that's killing us all now is all this uncertainty. New Jersey Representative Mikey Cheryl secured the earmark funding that paid to make this project, state-of-the-art green housing. She's the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 26 race for governor. Are you going to be able to do stuff like this under the Trump administration moving forward? It's really unclear. What's so upsetting about what's going on right now is some of the very programs that created the most opportunity or lifted people up are just being targeted. There's not a lot of thoughtfulness going on in Washington for how we grow opportunity and make a more resilient country.

Experts say New Jersey is short 200,000 low-priced homes for low-income families. And state officials have set an ambitious goal of constructing or repairing more than 140,000 affordable homes by 2035. Anthony Bucco is New Jersey's Republican State Senate leader. He says the state will need to get more creative and efficient so towns don't take 10 years. years to build just 44 units. Unfortunately, we know in New Jersey that nothing moves quickly. Got to do whatever we need to do to reduce the regulation, reduce the red tape to get these units like these built much quicker.

In Washington, it'll be up to Congress to decide whether to include President Trump's proposed funding cuts for energy-efficient and affordable housing development. In Madison, Cadizza Smith and her children are looking forward to their new home. What's the first thing you're going to do after everything has moved in? Oh, my God. I think I'm going to do praise dance. I'm going to bless my house, anointed. She says that for the first time, her and her kids will have this sort of affordable home

that they and every family deserve. That's WMYC's Mike Hayes. We're getting closer and closer to the official start of the summer. The sun is setting later in the day, and the weather is perfect for staying up late and staring at the night's sky. from beaches, parks, and rooftops. WMYC's Rosemary says there are some constellations to be on the lookout for. The classic summer constellation is the summer triangle, which is technically not a constellation.

It's actually three very bright stars from three different constellations. Vega from Lira, Altar, which is in Akela. And then you have Deneb, which is in the Swan constellation. All you have to do to spot them is. look up overhead. It's at the zenith of the sky. And when it gets dark around 930 or later, they're very visible. And there are also other constellations that you can see. There's the constellation Leo, which has a very bright star, Regulus, which will be right next to Mars and the crescent moon. And then there's the constellation Scorpio, which has a bright red star. And it'll be easy

to spot on the ninth because it'll be right next to the moon. That's WMYC's Rosemary Look out for those constellations And take it from me, you're never too old to wish upon a star. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.