Julie DeLaurier from Rise and Resist points to the garage at 35 Harrison Street that protesters say houses a fleet of SUVs used by ICE agents. According to the activists, a scrim was installed behind the the gate to hide the cars after organizers announced the demonstration. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib
Protesters gathered late Monday afternoon outside a gated garage at 35 Harrison Street in Tribeca where they say a fleet of unmarked SUVs used by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, is parked. A photo taken on July 23 by one of the activists shows nearly two dozen shiny black vehicles parked in the ICON garage, part of the Independence Plaza residential complex.
The garage is leased by Independence Plaza owners Stellar Management and Vornado Realty Trust.
“We announced this protest a week ago, and between our announcement last week and yesterday, the grate has been covered up with a curtain, a scrim, a blinder. Covered up so that passersby can no longer see inside,” said protest leader Jay W. Walker of Rise and Resist, a group at the forefront of actions against ICE arrests and detentions of immigrants.
“What are ICE and ICON hiding?” Walker continued. “Their shame, that’s what they’re hiding.”
“Shame!” the protesters shouted back.
The demonstration was one of several actions this year, Walker said, that has targeted the operators of parking facilities alleged to have federal contracts for vehicles used by ICE. From February through May, he said, they pressed the Hudson River Park Trust to end a contract early for what they claimed was ICE parking at Pier 40. They have also focused actions against alleged ICE parking at 201 Varick Street and the Metropolis Garage at 80 Morton Street.
Councilman Christopher Marte told the demonstrators that when rumors of the ICE parking began circulating three months ago, “We reached out to Vornado and Stellar Management, and they said, ‘We’ll deal with it if that’s true.’ Three months later, we are standing here calling them out on their lies.”
Spokespersons for Icon Parking and Stellar Management did not respond to requests for comment.
ICE agents have reportedly made hundreds of arrests in New York City over the last several months, largely in Latin American immigrant neighborhoods and often by grabbing people off the street. The recent lifting of Temporary Protection Status for Haitian immigrants by the Trump administration is now sparking fear in those communities as well.
