On a December day when temperatures dipped below 20 degrees, Street Vendor Project staff walked along a busy commercial street in the Bronx, handing out \u201cknow your rights\u201d information to vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Several vendors mentioned they were scared after watching videos of immigration raids across the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to go around helping vendors apply for permits so they wouldn\u2019t get fined,\u201d said Eric Nava-P\u00e9rez, Street Vendor Project\u2019s Spanish-speaking member organizer. \u201cBut now, we\u2019re out here distributing immigration rights information.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he checked in with various vendors, he asked them if they\u2019d seen any recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)<\/a> activity and instructed them on when to use the whistles he was distributing. \u201cBlow the whistles as loud as you can if you see la migra,\u201d he said. \u201cContact us or stop by our office if you have any questions.\u201d<\/p>\n The membership-based organization for street vendors has been traversing immigrant neighborhoods across the five boroughs more than ever over the past few months. Under the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on immigration this year, ICE has made 7,488<\/a> arrests in New York. Street vendors have been increasingly targeted.<\/p>\n In late October, 14 people,<\/a> both immigrants and protesters, were detained by agents in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown after a conservative influencer<\/a> posted about a \u201chuge group of African illegal immigrants\u201d selling counterfeit goods. A second large-scale operation in lower Manhattan was thwarted in late November after 200 protesters<\/a> blocked law enforcement vehicles from leaving their garages.<\/p>\n A Federal agent pulls out his taser as law enforcement conduct a raid on street vendors during rush hour on 21 October 2025 in New York City. Photograph: Michael Nigro\/Pacific Press\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Advocates say that street vendors are particularly vulnerable<\/a> to these immigration sweeps. Of the approximately 23,000 street vendors<\/a> operating in New York City, 96% identified as immigrants, and 27% of mobile food vendors identified as undocumented.<\/p>\n With national guard troops storming cities like Los Angeles, Washington DC and Chicago over the past six months, and border patrol recently charging into New Orleans and North Carolina, many fear New York is next. While Trump pledged to work with mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani<\/a> on key issues like housing and cost-of-living concerns during a recent White House visit, organizers on the ground are skeptical of a true alliance and have already witnessed an escalation in immigration raids.<\/p>\n Groups like Street Vendor Project and NYC Ice Watch, a community-led platform alerting neighborhoods about immigration raids, are training volunteers and canvassing the streets to prepare vendors for what could lie ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re expanding upon the systems that are already in place to keep vendors safe from NYPD and the Department of Sanitation Police,\u201d said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, the deputy director of the Street Vendor Project. \u201cVendors, for the most part, have been on their own. That\u2019s part of why they\u2019re some of the most vulnerable communities to immigration enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n Relying on word-of-mouth channels to mobilize<\/strong><\/p>\n In late October, Carra, a volunteer with NYC Ice Watch who asked to use a pseudonym over safety concerns, saw on social media that ICE was detaining vendors on Canal Street in Chinatown. She alerted her husband, who was in the area. \u201cHe hopped off the subway, but it was too late,\u201d she said. \u201cAgents had already swept the street and were leaving the street in their vans.\u201d<\/p>\n The next month\u2019s attempted raid on Canal Street was a different story \u2013 organizers and everyday New Yorkers were prepared. Volunteers from different groups warned street vendors over multiple days that ICE would return. \u201cSome listened to us, but not all of them left because they had to keep working,\u201d said Javier, an NYC Ice Watch member, who also asked to go by a pseudonym over similar concerns.<\/p>\n On the day of the raid, protesters learned about the operation before it launched. Javier said that word spread quickly through their multiple social media channels. Protesters mobilized at a building where immigration agents were preparing to head downtown and blocked vehicles from leaving the garage. \u201cICE is a rogue agency, which means it\u2019s a leaking ship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Carra described the group\u2019s communication methods as a game of telephone. \u201cWe tell someone, who tells someone, who tells someone,\u201d she said. She named Reddit as a helpful channel where organizers can share information quickly throughout the boroughs. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at social media, news, anything that we can use to our advantage,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s power in numbers, and now that people have seen we\u2019ve successfully stopped abductions, I hope they can get out there too.\u201d<\/p>\n The Street Vendor Project hands out \u2018know your rights\u2019 information to vendors in the Bronx, New York. Photograph: Iris Kim<\/p>\n This multi-channel neighborhood watch approach is what advocates are relying on to keep street vendors safe as threats continue to rise. Street Vendor Project\u2019s staff and volunteers started distributing \u201cknow your rights\u201d information and whistles to vendors in early November, after the first raid on Canal Street. They\u2019ve also partnered with other organizations such as the New York Immigration Coalition to ask small-business owners if they can allow people to seek shelter in their stores during raids. Some business owners have been receptive to their requests, said the coalition.<\/p>\n The Street Vendor Project is also setting up additional programs, like \u201chire-a-vendor\u201d, to support vendors who are out of work and afraid of the immigration raids. \u201cNow, we\u2019re reaching out to individuals who are having events or parties and want to hire a street vendor,\u201d Kaufman-Gutierrez said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great way for New Yorkers to directly support vendors.\u201d<\/p>\n Overall, organizations have been learning by communicating with organizers in other cities, like the Street Vendors Association of Chicago<\/a>, Community Power Collective<\/a> and Inclusive Action<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of us came together to share strategies during the pandemic, and that\u2019s happening again now,\u201d Kaufman-Gutierrez said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the different tactics that immigration enforcement has taken in different cities to create strategies to keep street vendors safe in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n Targeting of street vendors is nothing new<\/strong><\/p>\n Even before the ICE raids, New York street vendors had long been threatened with fines and sweeps by the New York police department and the sanitation department. Advocates have spent years pushing for the end of criminal penalties<\/a> for street vendors and to lift the longtime cap<\/a> on permits in the city. \u201cLocal laws have made it so that vendors exist in the regulatory shadows, even though they\u2019re some of the most visible businesses,\u201d Kaufman-Gutierrez said.<\/p>\n But the immigration raids are an added threat to these vendors. Margarita, a produce vendor who only gave her first name for fear of arrest, said that the videos from Canal Street upset her. \u201cI\u2019m scared,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I can\u2019t be paralyzed or dwell on fear. I have no choice but to work.\u201d<\/p>\n The immigration raids have also meant that residents of mostly-immigrant neighborhoods<\/a> have been spending less time outside. Nava-P\u00e9rez stopped by a street vendor who worried about the decline in customers. \u201cUsually this time of year I make good business because people are buying things on their way home, staying inside, and cooking,\u201d Osorio, who didn\u2019t give his full name for safety reasons, said. \u201cBut this year we\u2019ve seen less business overall.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, organizers across the city are preparing for the possible deployment of national guard troops to New York City. Hands Off NYC,<\/a> a coalition of over 200 faith leaders, unions and community groups, has been hosting \u201cKnow Your Rights\u201d trainings<\/a> across the city that draw over a thousand participants at a time. They\u2019ve also planned \u201cWeekends of Action\u201d<\/a>, including events this weekend, where dozens of neighborhood groups canvas the streets and reach out to their neighbors.<\/p>\n Hae-Lin Choi, co-founder of Hands Off NYC, said that they\u2019ve been watching what\u2019s happening in other cities and ramping up their trainings. \u201cWe need to start with the neighborhood, and connect people street by street, block by block, so that when raids happen to community members like our street vendors, we have a local rapid response structure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Even though it\u2019s the holiday season, they\u2019ve seen an influx of volunteers who want to connect with their neighbors and communities during the Weekend of Action.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s to the point where we can\u2019t keep up with volunteer demand,\u201d Choi said. \u201cDuring this dark time, it\u2019s heartening to see how community members want to step up and feel like they did something in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n