A daughter of a Palestinian refugee detained and deported by ICE, a son of Korean street peddlers who sold clothes on Canal Street, and an Arab-Latina daughter of Syrian and Mexican immigrants will all appear on the ballot in New York’s primary elections next week.
They are among a slew of candidates raised in immigrant families who are challenging the Democratic Party on its politics on immigration. Many are demanding that immigrants be better served and more meaningfully protected by their elected representatives, especially when faced with the heavy-handed enforcement operations of the Trump administration.
Across races for the House of Representatives, the state Senate and the state Assembly, several of these candidates are seeking to unseat Democratic incumbents, challenging them from the left on a host of issues, with a centerpiece of their platforms being immigration. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a naturalized citizen himself and the city’s first immigrant mayor in generations, has endorsed several of these challengers.
“What we all have realized as people who have been voting for the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party has failed us,” Aber Kawas, a community organizer seeking the party’s nomination to the New York State Senate in Queens against Assembly member Steven Raga, told Documented. “They have failed to be bold and proactive in protecting immigrant communities.”
From calling to abolish ICE and seeking to provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders a path to citizenship through legislation in Congress, to working on passing an expanded version of New York For All in the state. The bill, which was first introduced in 2020 and pushed by immigrant advocacy groups and progressive organizers, lays out provisions that will end local cooperation with the federal government’s immigration enforcement. The candidates continue to canvass heavily on their vision to abolish ICE and to sever cooperation with federal agencies on immigration enforcement.
Early voting is underway for the primaries, with election day on Tuesday, June 23.
Darializa Avila Chevalier
‘Time for Democrats to Step Up’: An Afro-Latina Daughter of Dominican Immigrants Running for Congress
In her run for Congress in New York’s 13th congressional district against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Darializa Avila Chevalier lists “Abolish ICE” as her first priority, according to her platform.
Chevalier — a doctoral student at the City University of New York who worked as an investigator at Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, which supports New Yorkers targeted by the legal system — said she will also fight to mandate free legal representation for every immigrant navigating what she describes as an “unnecessarily chaotic and complicated” immigration system.
“This wave of candidates from immigrant families running for office is the Democratic Party’s wake-up call that they have failed to meet our needs, and so now we have to fight for them in the halls of power,” Chevalier told Documented.
Chevalier’s campaign will challenge five-time Democratic Congressman Espaillat, the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress and the first Dominican American in the House of Representatives.
Chevalier’s academic studies explore how the U.S. immigration system criminalizes Black immigrants from Latin America. As an Afro-Latina daughter of Dominican immigrants herself, she is seeking an upset in NY-13, the congressional district covering upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.
“As the daughter of Dominican immigrants who has watched my community be terrorized by ICE, my agenda starts with a simple, non-negotiable demand: abolish ICE,” Chevalier told Documented. She added, “On day one, I’ll sign onto the American Dream & Promise Act to give DREAMers and TPS holders a real path to citizenship.”
While working at Families for Freedom, a New York-based human rights organization by and for families facing deportation, Chevalier says she helped free Abdikar Mohamed, a U.S. permanent resident from Somalia, from ICE detention. Her campaign website notes that Abdikar had been detained for a year and a half due to Donald Trump’s 2017 “Muslim ban.”
Chuck Park
‘My Exact Story Is What Is Under Attack Right Now’: A Son of Korean Street Peddlers
Chuck Park is a son of Korean immigrants who settled in Woodside, Queens, in the 1980s.
“Their first job in this country was street peddling. They used to sell jackets, jeans, t-shirts, on Canal Street in Chinatown,” Park told Documented. “My dad was undocumented for a time.”
So, when ICE picked up at least half a dozen street vendors from Canal Street in October last year, it felt personal for Park.
“I saw ICE raids last fall on Canal Street — armored vehicles, agents with masks and assault rifles grabbing street vendors, destroying stories like mine before they could even start,” he said. “My immigrant identity is critical and crucial to who I am as a person and what this campaign is about, because my exact story is what is under attack right now.”
Park is running against Democratic incumbent Grace Meng, a Taiwanese American currently serving her seventh term from New York’s 6th congressional district, encompassing some of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods such as Corona, Elmhurst, Woodside and Flushing.
Park, who previously worked as a diplomat under the Obama administration, said it was frustrating that many Democrats in Congress, including Meng, have not been pushing to abolish ICE and are continuing to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
“It’s not sufficient to just be an immigrant or be the child of immigrants, you have to actually take action to protect immigrant communities,” he said.
Aber Kawas
‘Defending an Onslaught Against Our Communities’: Daughter of a Deported Palestinian Refugee
When Kawas was a teenager, her father was held in ICE detention for around three years before being deported to Jordan. Kawas, a daughter of Palestinian refugees, hopes to win a State Senate seat in New York, after being frustrated by what she said is the Democratic Party’s failure to meet the moment.
“The Democratic Party has put us in a position where we’re in a fight,” Kawas told Documented. “We are defending an onslaught against our communities, and that is why we need to transform the Democratic Party as one of the pathways to actually making life for immigrants better in the United States.”
Kawas pointed to the results of the mayoral election in November as a sign of people’s frustrations.
“We saw with the election of Mayor Mamdani last year, that people were looking for transformative change, for elected officials to do more.” Recently, Mamdani announced that he was endorsing Kawas’ candidacy.
Senate District 12 spans several ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Queens including parts of Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City, and Jackson Heights.
Kawas, whose own family has experienced the impact of ICE detention and deportation, is running on a platform that seeks to pass an expanded version of New York For All to end the state’s “collaboration with ICE.” Additionally, she aims to pass legislation that prohibits state and local contracts with ICE facilities, and also to prohibit contracts with Flock Safety, an AI-enabled technology that she says “violates privacy rights and can be used by ICE.”
Samantha Kattan
‘Still a Lot of Work to Do’: An Arab-Latina in the World’s Borough
Samantha Kattan grew up in Austin, Texas, to Syrian and Mexican parents. “The neighborhood that I grew up in was not very diverse,” she told Documented. “Part of why I feel so connected to Queens, and at home here, is that it’s so incredibly diverse.”
Kattan is running for office in New York State Assembly District 37, a seat that will be vacated by Claire Valdez, who is running for Congress. She will be facing off against Pia Rahman and Melissa Orlando. The district includes Long Island City, Sunnyside, Maspeth, all the way to Ridgewood. She is endorsed by the city chapter of Democratic Socialists of America as well as by Mamdani.
“My dad passed away in 2021. So being able to make more connections with the Arab community and the Muslim community [during the campaign] has been really nice for me. It’s been like a sweet healing journey,” she said.
Kattan said that in office she will seek to continue the work she did as a housing organizer, but will also work to push for the landmark New York For All legislation in its entirety.
“Immigrants and advocates have been fighting for New York For All for years, and it took a very, very concerted effort this year to get most of what would be a New York For All passed. “But it still allows for some data sharing between local law enforcement and ICE,” said Kattan, pointing to it as an example of what she hopes to legislate against in the next assembly.
Like other progressive candidates, Kattan also thinks that the delay in the passage of the New York For All Bill is the fault of the Democratic Party. “We have a Democratic majority in the city, Assembly and the Senate,” she said. “It’s frustrating that despite this we have ICE showing up at our neighbors’ doors.”
