NYC NOW - November 7, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Democrat Laura Gillen has defeated incumbent Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in Long Island’s 4th Congressional district. Plus, New York City voters approved a ballot proposal that advocates say authorizes a strict crackdown on street vendors. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill and Arya Sundaram discuss President-elect Trump’s campaign pledge to carry out the largest mass deportation program in the nation’s history.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jean-A Pierre. The AP is calling it. Democrat Laura Gillen will be taking the congressional seat in Long Island's fourth congressional district in Nassau County. She defeated incumbent Republican Anthony D. Esposito. The close-raised flips another seat from red to blue and inches Democrats closer to control of the House, though the majority remains up in the air with the GOP.

ahead by 13 seats as of this recording on an early Thursday evening. Voters in New York City approved a ballot proposal that advocates say authorizes a strict crackdown on street vendors, many of whom are undocumented immigrants. WMYC's Liam Quigley has more. The Sanitation Department says the measure will help them push forward with plans to get the city's garbage off of sidewalks and into containers. But advocates like Karina Kaufman-Gutierrez with the street vendor projects are saying it's just giving them. the city another enforcement tool that it can use to crack down on immigrants. It's a thousand dollar ticket if you are vending without a permit.

This city is forcing people out of their homes through what they're calling fines for non-compliance. The specter of a crackdown comes as President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations of immigrants once he takes office. Stay close. We'll talk more about Trump's plan to debate. report migrants after the break. Immigrants across the New York City area await details of President-elect Trump's campaign pledge

to carry out the largest mass deportation program in the nation's history. Stephanie Vargas came to New York from Venezuela with her husband and children. She says she fears what may actually happen under Trump's second term. The Trump pledge could mean hundreds of thousands of immigrants would leave the U.S. My colleague Michael Hill talked more about the plan and its potential implications with WMYC's Aria Sundara. What exactly is Trump proposing in his second term here? At this point, we don't have many specifics beyond the fact that this was, you know, a marquee campaign pledge for him, that he touted in campaign rallies and, of course, in his platform.

before the election, he made an indication of what he'd consider as part of this deportation plan. So, for example, deploying the National Guard, erecting deportation camps, withholding money from cities that don't cooperate. And it's too early to know for sure exactly what this would look like on the ground, but there is the possibility that it could resemble this sweeping vision that Trump has promised. So on the ground here, what that might look like would be raids at workplaces and homes. potentially major worker shortages in some industries. But there are some major obstacles for this to actually come to fruition. So here's how a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, Musafar Chishti, put it when we were talking. Can it be operationalized?

And can it especially be operationalized in a city like New York? And, you know, it's doubtful. It's clearly doubtful. So there are barriers, constitutional, financial, logistical that could keep Trump from implementing large-scale reforms and certainly keep him from doing so on day one, as he's promised. Tell us more about these barriers. There are likely to be legal challenges, lawsuits to whatever he proposes.

So just like was the case with the immigration policies from when he was last in office. So, for example, the family separation policy and Muslim travel ban, as you remember, those policies were called. And state and local officials can also be. thorns in the side of this deportation plan as well. So with the National Guard, Trump also needs Governor Hogle's permission to deploy the National Guard in the state, and she could deny him from doing so. And in New York City, one of the biggest barriers are the city's sanctuary city laws. So as you know, this would be a massive operation that experts say would require more manpower

than the current agency tasked with immigration and customs enforcement within our borders, ICE, can currently manage on its own. So some experts say that cooperation would be necessary to making this happen, and certainly in an expedient way. But in New York City, these sanctuary city laws prohibit the use of city staff or other resources to help enforce immigration laws. And city agencies like the NYPD are restricted in how they can help ICE. So, for example, if ICE asks the police to hold or detain a suspect, they cannot do so unless the person has been convicted of certain violent crimes and a judge has ordered them to be deported.

Mayor Adams is often railed against what he sees as inaction by the Biden administration with the influx of migrants when it comes to a number of asylum seekers in the fire barrel. So given that, what is Mayor Adams saying about the president-elect's plan? The day after the election on Wednesday morning, the mayor held a press conference where he said repeatedly that he plans to protect all immigrants regardless of their legal status. And there, the head of his office of immigrant affairs, Manuel Castro, also said the city wouldn't follow the instructions of the federal government with regards to mass deportations. So going a step beyond what is required by the sanctuary city laws. And Mayor Adams also chimed in on the whole situation before the election. Mass deportation of that is not, it's not going to happen in New York City. Though Mayor Adams has some wrenches he could throw into this plan, the thing is he might not have a choice.

It's longstanding Supreme Court precedent that the president has full and complete discretion over immigration enforcement. Right, because that's a federal enforcement issue. Let's try to bring some facts to this, REO. Who could actually be deported under this plan? Does it include asylum seekers? Trump hasn't been very clear about the particulars, only to say that, you know, he plans to target, quote, unquote, illegal immigrants, as he puts it. But what does that actually mean? You know, that's a term of art.

It's squishy. So who might he be talking about here? And usually when I hear people use this term, they're talking about some swath of the estimated 11 million immigrants across the country who don't have citizenship or legal permission to reside here. So, for example, people who overstay a visa and may have been here for decades. And about 680,000 or so of those people are in New York State. But it's important to note that this population does not include asylum seekers, you know, who've gotten a lot of public attention in the past few years because of the recent influx into city shelters. Asylum seekers, meanwhile, are legally allowed to remain in the country while waiting out a verdict on their immigration legal places. But, you know, it's unclear at this point what will happen to them under this mass deportation policy.

What would be the impact of mass deportation policy in New York? If it does actually come to fruition, you have potentially thousands of people's lives upended. Families, communities, and beyond the social impact, there's also the economic impact. According to a report by a national think tank called the American Immigration Council, this plan would cost $88 billion a year. and there'd be a loss of four to seven percent an annual U.S. gross domestic product. Experts say that could cause major workers shortages and industries that hire a number of unauthorized immigrant workers. So like agriculture, construction, food service, hospitality, and health care in New York, at least, according to one researcher I spoke to.

And the reality is, is just that so many industries that we rely on rely on the labor of unauthorized immigrants. And one expert suggested to me that the economic blowback from this plan could be so enormous, that it would keep it from happening or ensure that it's much more scaled back than Trump has suggested. That's WNYC's ARIASundrum talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.