For the past two weeks, on his way to and from work as a restaurant greeter in Brooklyn, E.C. has carried a transparent folder in his backpack. Inside the folder is a plane ticket with his name on it — it’s dated Sept. 22, 2026 — the day he plans to return to Honduras. The folder also contains printouts of emails, mentioning his intentions to depart the country, that he has exchanged with representatives of CBP Home App.
E.C., who requested Documented only use his initials for privacy concerns, said he carries the copies of the email and his plane ticket in case he comes across ICE officers, hoping the documents will be proof enough that he plans to leave the country, and that there’s no need for him to be arrested.
“I do not want to end up in a detention center,” the 55 year-old told Documented in Spanish. “I want to avoid any situation that would place me in detention for four, eight or nine months.”
Since June, immigrants like E.C. have reported increased ICE activity in their neighborhoods and across New York City, pushing them to make significant changes to their daily lives. At a rally on Monday afternoon, local officials, neighbors and organizers gathered at Corona Plaza in Queens to denounce the uptick in ICE sightings around the city, and canvas in the area, handing out Know-Your-Rights materials and whistles to local businesses and neighbors. Those who spoke with Documented described avoiding public spaces on their days off and missing medical appointments to stay home and out of sight. Some said they are considering leaving the country altogether because of the stress and fear they associate with increased immigration enforcement.
ICE sightings in New York City saw a sharp uptick in July — there were 59 sightings, up from 20 the month prior, according to data provided to Documented by NYC ICE Breaker, a volunteer group that collects and visualizes ICE sighting data. Queens was particularly impacted by increased ICE activity, with 44 sightings, making up roughly 48% of sightings across all five boroughs since the beginning of June.
While DHS has not provided any official confirmation of broader immigration operations in New York City, the community reports of more ICE sightings come only weeks after border czar Tom Homan’s threats of an impending ICE surge in New York.
E. C., who lives in Richmond Hill, Queens, said that while he has never encountered or seen ICE officials in the area, he has often avoided taking a car to work, opting instead to take public transportation, as he considers it safer for the moment.
“Just today I saw five detentions,” he said about a video he saw on social media. “It was five vans carrying people to work…I was like, these are hard working people. At least go for robbers or criminals but not the hard working people. ”
S.A.C., a 56-year-old mother from Mexico, echoed the fears of being arrested and sent to detention centers. She has lived in the Bronx and worked as a housekeeper for nearly three decades, and said she has observed an increase of ICE activity in the neighborhood.
“It is worrisome because we know they are not trained to do their job, so they are using excessive force,” she said. “They are very aggressive and that causes a lot of fear.” She requested Documented use only her initials due to fear of retribution by ICE.
“We know they are not trained to do their job, so they are using excessive force.”
S.A.C., 56, Bronx resident
She also believes that the fear of ICE detention has severely impacted certain vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, people who have depression, or those who live with some kind of disability.
S.A.C. has also noticed children spending more time indoors this summer. Meanwhile, she said some parents she knows decided not attend their children’s college graduation ceremonies Upstate, out of fear of being detained on Amtrak or being pulled over while driving outside of the city. “If a family member is a little late or doesn’t arrive on time to the house, it generates a lot of anxiety,” she said.
It was at the end of July, after hearing of increased ICE activity around the city and the country and seeing videos online of immigrants being violently arrested and detained for prolonged periods of time, that E.C. decided to finally purchase a plane ticket to return home. “When I saw that our rights as human beings were being violated, I said to myself, it’s time to get out of here because you don’t want the same thing to happen to you,” he said.
E.C. arrived in New York in the fall of 2023 and has a pending asylum case, with a hearing scheduled for 2028. And even though he has a valid work permit and a Social Security Number, he said he no longer feels those documents could protect him from being detained.
“They [ICE officers] just stop you in any corner and say ‘hey you look Hispanic, let’s go,’” he said. He said he believes that immigration officers are targeting people who they assume are Latinos, simply by the way they look or the language they speak.
In May, The City Reporter analyzed ICE arrests from Oct. 15, 2025 to March 15, 2026 and found that 93% of the arrests were of Latinos.
‘The epicenter of the war against ICE’
Clara C., 56-year-old resident of Long Island, said that her friend’s son self-deported to Colombia earlier this year after continuous ICE enforcement in the area. Clara, who is from Mexico, said her friend has not left her home for three months. She has been helping her and others by delivering groceries to them. “Everyone is afraid because they have seen that ICE is coming to our communities and taking people away.”
As an organizer with the nonprofit Las Doñas, which empowers women in the U.S. through leadership development and other programs, Clara said she has also seen parents who are afraid to leave for work because they fear on any given day they may not be able to return home to their children.
“We are afraid,” she said. “These persecutions are impacting our mental health. We are afraid that we might be the next person to leave our home and lose our life because of ICE.”
“We are afraid that we might be the next person to leave our home and lose our life because of ICE.”
—Clara C., 56, Long Island resident
At Monday’s rally, Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz said the neighborhood was in a “war against ICE.”
“We are nearing two years that an emergency is no longer is a fire in the neighborhood,” she said. “Rather, it is that ICE has knocked on someone’s house, looking for someone who has not lived there for three years, trying to break in.”
Cruz, who represents several neighborhoods in Queens, including Corona, described scenes of New Yorkers being detained while attending their legal asylum hearings; of parents and children being disappeared and no one knowing where they were; and families making heartbreaking emergency plans they hope to never use, in case any one of them is detained.
“I am sorry for my words… but we are not going to allow that degenerate [Trump] to separate our families,” Cruz said in Spanish, adding that it’s been nearly two years since people in the neighborhood had begun sharing information to protect each other.
Other speakers echoed her words. “We send the message right back that if you come for one of us, you come for all of us,” said Council member Shekar Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and East Elmhurst. “In this perilous moment, we got each other. We will fight together and protect one another.”
Clara, who also attended the rally, said Las Doñas has been organizing to educate all people on their constitutional rights in this country.
“This president is a bad person. He has no feelings. He is an autocrat who is violating our constitutional rights,” she said in Spanish, in reference to Trump’s recent executive order that sought to deny birthright citizenship to certain immigrant groups. “He knows that our fathers fought to leave behind a constitution that defends us.”
Similarly, E. C. reiterated that immigrants’ rights are being violated during this administration.
“Unfortunately, the moment the constitutional rights are broken, we are no longer considered to be here legally,” he said, adding that the country has felt uninhabitable for many people. “Even for those who have been here ‘legally.’ ”
He said he will continue working at the restaurant and as an assistant manager at a parking garage until his departure flight to Honduras nears, but also plans to stay home on his two days off. After sending the copy of his flight information to CBP Home, a CBP representative contacted him and reassured him that he has a “99% chance” that he won’t be put in a detention center.
“So I guess that means that I have some type of protection,” E.C. said. “If agents come to me I can show them the folder where I have all the printed emails of what they told me.”
