Officers were recorded going door to door in an apartment building and threatening to use force to get in. At least one was photographed brandishing an assault rifle in the street outside.
ICE was attempting to execute a criminal arrest warrant, ICE told me, and deportation officers were assisted by a Special Response Team. Hence tan/olive uniforms. No BORTAC agents were present.
Inmates say they were locked in freezing cells after electrical problems knocked out lights and heat at the federal jail. "People are frantic. They’re really, really scared. They don’t have extra blankets." My latest story.
I’m with three families who were just reunited in New York. Each family includes a child younger than 5. This is Joshua. He and his father fled gang violence in Honduras and came seeking asylum. Apart for a month, they didn’t speak by phone even once.
UPDATE: Federal agents are now removing dozens of workers from India from a massive Hindu temple in New Jersey. Lawyers for some temple workers say this is one of the largest instances of forced labor on U.S. soil in decades.
Yesterday we reported on power and heat issues at the MDC. A judge issued a court order to allow the federal defender Deirdre von Dornum to take a tour last night to check on conditions. She told me the following: 1/7
Rally outside MDC Brooklyn, where we first reported poor heating and a power issue that has kept inmates confined to cold cells without lights since Sunday. Inmates pound windows as a brass band plays and people chant outside.
Tonight on the migrant caravan: a giant thunderstorm, a Mariachi concert, a candlelight vigil for the young man traveling with them who died yesterday.
Who’s marching? How did it start? How do they eat and travel? Politics has largely overshadowed life on the ground for thousands in the caravan. Here are some questions, answered. Have another one? Ask it here and our team will answer.
Crowd of thousands booing Mayor Bill de Blasio at a memorial for George Floyd at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. Can’t hear what he’s saying over chanting. “Defund the police!” “Resign!”
I spoke to a dozen of the contract workers behind the $300m/year effort to the keep the NYC subway cleaner than ever. They make as little as half as much as transit workers and have no health insurance or access to the Covid-19 vaccine.
"The only thing I knew that I shared with Omar was his sensitivity and his ability to love, and his ability to love deep. I knew that I had that in me.”
Our full obituary is now up. With
@juliarebeccaj
,
@matthewhaag
,
@jegner
.
This week I wrote about the more than 250 Mexican immigrants who have died of Covid-19 around New York and their families' struggles to claim their remains – before they end up in a mass grave – and send them home.
[Thread]
BREAKING: The entire
@mocanyc
collection stored at 70 Mulberry St. will likely be lost after a fire broke out in the building last night, museum officials say.
I just put some lentil soup on the G train to see if it makes it all the way to my friend in Greenpoint, unescorted.
It’s a 21-minute trip. I’ll update here as the experiment progresses.
UPDATE: ICE said it was a criminal arrest warrant issued by a federal judge, noting ICE’s local SRT is used for criminal arrests/high-risk enforcement.
Residents tonight said officers who went door to door did not show a warrant with a name or ask for a specific person.
A story about immigrant Queens we never thought we’d write. A 7-mile area celebrated as one of the most diverse places on earth has more than 7,000 cases of covid-19. That’s hard to grasp; here’s a glimpse. By
@AndrewJacobsNYT
and me. Pics by
@rcjonesphoto
I’m with Yeni González, separated from her children at the border and now being driven by volunteers from Arizona to New York, to join her three kids. Story w/
@gabriellaangojo
coming soon.
How an anonymous tip – emailed after midnight on the coldest day of January – led me to uncover the crisis at MDC Brooklyn. “No heat no power no proper food,” it said. “Over 72 hours in lockdown. Please help.”
JUST IN: The DOJ has requested that the Inspector General "undertake a review of this matter to determine if BOP responded appropriately to the heat and electricity failures at MDC Brooklyn and to assess whether BOP has in place adequate contingency plans for such an incident."
An immigration-related thread: ICE has continued to make arrests around NYC for the last 10 days, including in areas with clusters of covid-19 cases like New Rochelle and Suffolk County, a move that lawyers fear could endanger medically-vulnerable clients already in custody.
This family from Guatemala was reunited today in New York. It was supposed to happen yesterday, the deadline for reuniting families with kids younger than 5, but the ankle monitors weren’t working. Kids are exhausted, but glad to be back with their parents. Story to come.
Just in: Yeni González has met with her children at Cayuga Centers in Manhattan, a month+ after being separated at the border. NYC-based organizers, who paid her bond and organized her ride from Arizona, hope this will become model for citizen activism.
The jail is running on emergency electrical power so inmates are being held in their cells instead of being let out into common areas. The cells are very cold and have no electrical power. Inmates say they have been locked in cells since Sunday. 2/7
Because power is down, inmates cannot use computers to request prescription refills, including psych meds. At least one man is a suicide risk. “There was a man who has been known to swallow razor blades.” 5/7
Yeni González, whose journey to New York we documented in The Daily, is about to retrieve her three children nearly two months after they were taken from her at the border.
Inmates said they got their first hot meal in nearly a week on Friday: rice and beans. People were banging on cell doors and asking to be let out to eat. “Can’t we just get out and eat at a table? We are like animals in here.” 7/7
Some men said they needed medical care, like one with an oozing wound on his leg and another with Crohn’s Disease who said he has lost several pounds since Sunday and looked “emaciated.” 6/7
Inmates said power problems began with a “blackout” ~two weeks ago. Power came back, was cut after a fire on Sunday. It was disturbing to be held in the dark for so long, they said. “The pitch black has made it significantly more agonizing for them.” They can’t even read. 4/7
Melania Trump's parents became citizens today. Asked if the Knavses had obtained citizenship through “chain migration,” their lawyer said, “I suppose. It’s a dirty — a dirtier word.” My story w/
@ESCochrane
up now.
She saw, spoke to inmates through cracks in cell doors. “Their heads are wrapped in towels. They are in lots of layers.” “Everyone agreed no extra blankets had been handed out.” The common areas were warmer though corrections officers were bundled up. 3/7
JUST IN: The New York City Council will consider extending voting rights to green card and workers permit holders including DACA recipients. "Immigrants continue to contribute so much," Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez told me. "Yet they go unheard of at the ballot box."
Cardinal Dolan just blessed the urns of 250 Mexican victims of Covid 19 at an emotional ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, as a mariachi band played. Soon the urns will be sent back to Mexico.
Photojournalist
@victorjblue
and I spent a few days walking the NYC neighborhoods hit first and hardest by the pandemic’s first wave. Here’s who we met. The portraits are not to be missed.
Life, death – and love – in the epicenter. A story about what happened to six people when the virus first struck the U.S., exploding in Queens, by
@DanBarryNYT
,
@MilitaJo
,
@heislerphoto
, and me, w/
@kirstendanis
.
The real threat to New York City is not wealthy people departing but immigrants not coming to the city at all, a trend we have seen since 2016, says the city’s departing chief demographer, Joe Salvo.
JUST IN: Reacting to the MDC Brooklyn crisis, a long list of lawmakers signed letters to the DOJ Inspector General and the Bureau of Prisons. “The Bureau is responsible for providing for the humane detention of these detainees—not subjecting them to third-world conditions.”
Latest story:
A lawsuit alleges low-caste laborers worked seven days/week to build and maintain sumptuous temples run by a prominent Hindu sect, earning as little as $1.20/hour, in Robbinsville,
NJ — and also Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.
“In times to come, when we are all gone, people not yet born will walk in the sunshine of their own days because of what women and men did at this hour to feed the sick, to heal and to comfort.”
A selection from Jim Dwyer’s column, About New York:
Here’s our deep dive into what really happened at MDC Brooklyn. Electricity and heat had been faltering for weeks, but complaints were ignored until a crisis trapped inmates in cold, dark cells. Story w/
@JoeKGoldstein
@cegoldbaum
@ktbenner
As protesters around the country demand the reunification of parents and children, here’s the story of one of the few mothers who has been released. Yeni is being driven across the country by volunteers to join her kids in New York.
@davidgura
You should really try listening to
@PreetBharara
on .5 speed. Sounds like the most coherent drunk you’ve ever heard. (Credit: my friend William McMillin, who laughs every time.)
Some professional news: I’m taking on a new reporting role at the NYT and handing over The Headlines to my talented team of producers and editors. Thank you to the many, many journalists who have joined us and thank you all for listening!
OH, woman in New York: “In fifth grade my little sister had to look up new vocabulary words and write sentences and she wrote, ‘Dolphins are playing in a river of carnage.’”
Our piece about how Queens became the epicenter of the pandemic this spring is out today as a 16-page special section. Here are some photos of Queens, and our subjects, by the fantastic
@heislerphoto
. THREAD.
Story w/
@DanBarryNYT
@MilitaJo
.
Two decades ago, my father was kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia for months. One decade ago, I produced a radio documentary about him. It’s being re-broadcast this weekend on
@ThisAmerLife
. He is no longer on this earth. But here he is, telling his story. I hope you’ll listen.
On the radio this weekend: A kidnapping victim spends his nights listening to a radio station that plays messages from the families of the kidnapped. That and other stories of people held captive—by criminals, paperwork, and in one man's case, his own body
Gorgeous photo essay by
@heislerphoto
, narrated by
@KirkSemple
. One of these families had a relative separated from her son at the border, for months, but they are going anyway.
I’m heading to Mexico City next week to give a talk on our
@nytimes
coverage of family separations. If you’re there on Oct 20 (and bilingual), stop by!
La periodista
@anniecorreal
que colabora en el
@nytimes
es parte del mediatón 2018 y nos hablará de Cómo desarrollar historias humanas sobre migración en la era de Trump: 5 lecciones de la crisis de familias separadas. Inscríbete!
Just weeks before Ecuador descended into chaos, the country’s attorney general launched a major operation aimed at rooting out narco-corruption. Called “Caso Metastasis,” Diana Salazar's investigation led to raids across Ecuador and more than 30 arrests.
BREAKING: Federal agents descended on a massive Hindu temple in New Jersey as a lawsuit claimed low-caste men had been lured from India to work for about $1 an hour.
We got a tip that it was hard to find naloxone at NYC pharmacies. So we checked at the 720 locations on the city’s list. The results were startling. My latest, with heavy phone lifting by
@Derek_M_Norman
.
New data shows New York City's immigrant neighborhoods have among the lowest vaccination rates in the city. We interviewed 115 people in several immigrant communities; only 8 had gotten their first dose. Here's what we heard.
1/X
The New York City Council voted to grant 800,00 noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, a move that places New York City at the forefront of the debate over voting rights.
@JeffCMays
and I report.
Here’s what we know so far about the separated children in New York. They could represent about a third of the 2,300 children separated from their parents at the border. Story w/
@nytlizrobbins
Hundreds of thousands of children have crossed the border without their parents in recent years. Many are risking their lives to build America’s roofs.
An investigation by
@hannahdreier
,
@docubrent
, Nicole Salazar,
@CarsonKessler
and me.
This week we joined Yeni González on a road trip to New York to find her children, separated from her at the border more than a month ago. Great photos by
@gabriellaangojo
.
I’m guest hosting The Daily for a bit. For my first episode, I spoke to
@EmilyAnthes
about why the omicron variant is causing a surge in hospitalizations and putting a huge strain on hospitals around the U.S.
Caravan arrived in tiny Mapastepec today. Searing heat gave way to tropical deluge. Lots of illness and exhaustion. A few hundred people were reported to have quit, may seek asylum in Mexico.
JUST IN: The Bureau of Prisons says the damaged electrical panel has been replaced and power is expected to return to MDC Brooklyn by Monday.
The city’s Office of Emergency Management is sending hundreds of blankets for inmates tonight, which the jail says it will accept.
I’m in Mexico helping with our
@nytimes
coverage of the migrant caravan. We’ll be following the group as it moves North through Mexico – w/
@KirkSemple
@mayaaverbuch
.
Our second episode on The Daily features something from the family separations story you may not have heard: the children’s voices. With
@itscaitlinhd
, produced by
@lynsea
and
@rquester
.
Isabel Galán lost her job when the pandemic hit.
She is now one of thousands of New Yorkers surviving on $100 a week.
We spent a few months documenting how her family gets by.
Latest story, w/ photographer Desiree Rios.
The Department of Justice has issued a statement regarding MDC Brooklyn. Says it will work with the Bureau of Prisons "to examine what happened and ensure the facility has the power, heat and backup systems in place to prevent the problem from reoccurring."
Crowd takes a knee outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn as 8 pm curfew approaches in New York.
Light police presence along the big circular route the marchers took tonight.
I’m working with
@nytlizrobbins
and
@NYTMetro
to follow the developing story of hundreds of children separated at the border who have been sent to New York. Here’s the latest.
The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. has encircled my family's ranch, but they've stayed, despite evacuation orders, tending to their cattle and fighting back flames.
Here's my dispatch from an unforgettable trip home, w/ photos by
@chrismatography
.
Essential reading:
@KirkSemple
tells us what’s happening with migrant caravans and why—starting with the smaller one that just crossed into Mexico by forming a human chain and wading across the Suchiate River. W/ incredible photos by
@heislerphoto
.
“I am sure you took care of yourself -- as much, I hope, as the care you gave to that beautiful piece.” — Jim Dwyer, April ‘20, who read all my stories and often wrote to tell me his favorite line.
Adrift like so many without this star in our firmament.
California’s giant Dixie Fire is hitting the town of Crescent Mills. “It’s on its way in now,” Ryan Kelly wrote in a text to me five minutes ago.
Ryan’s family evacuated but he stayed behind to try to protect his sister’s house.