In New York, immigration weighed closely on immigrants within the election : NPR

NEW YORK — It was an unusually heat evening for November in New York Metropolis.

In Staten Island, a conservative stronghold of the town, immigration was entrance and heart on voters’ minds in Tuesday’s election.

For months, Donald Trump and his marketing campaign have been promising mass deportations. In a metropolis that has acquired some 200,000 new migrants within the final two years, that promise has resonated amongst some.

“He’s gonna shut that border once more,” mentioned Jeanmarie Sigismondi, a schoolteacher. “He’s gonna get the criminals out. You come right here? Discover ways to communicate English. Come right here legally. Now we have no downside with immigrants. Come. Right here. Legally.”

These factors of view had been to be anticipated on this deeply Republican a part of city. Out in Jackson Heights, Queens, the image was extra difficult.

NPR first stopped by a Bangladeshi a part of the neighborhood, the place the election outcomes had been being broadcast on a large out of doors display. Amen Kahn was watching the published and sipping some tea.

Khan is within the nation legally, and he can’t vote. However he mentioned that if he may have, it will have been for Donald Trump.

New York Metropolis is a Democratic stronghold, and Jackson Heights, the neighborhood by which we met Khan, is synonymous with its various immigrant communities. The mass deportations promised by the Trump marketing campaign would goal areas like these. And but, on election evening, this neighborhood was deeply divided on its assist of former President Donald Trump.

“I’m additionally [an] immigrant,” Khan mentioned. “However I got here in a authorized means. These individuals who don’t have any papers, and [are] crossing the border, we have to take them out from this nation.”

Some on this crowd disagreed with him.

Standing on the doorway to his clothes retailer, Mithu Ahmed invited us right into a world of beautiful materials and jewellery. He wouldn’t say who he voted for, as a result of he mentioned this neighborhood is means too divided on the difficulty.

However he did say he misplaced numerous enterprise through the pandemic. It was immigrants who introduced it again. “Who involves our retailer? The immigrants.” With out them, he mentioned, the financial system would endure.

“Elon Musk,” he jokes, “shouldn’t be shopping for my stuff.”

A couple of blocks up, on the Latin music bar Terraza 7, the proprietor, Freddy Castiblanco, watched the election on a giant display, nervously. He mentioned numerous the Latino immigrants who’ve been right here for many years assist Trump.

Some recalled feeling afraid through the Obama presidency, who they known as “the Deporter-in-Chief.” They mentioned they really feel Democratic immigration coverage has develop into exhausting to tell apart from Republican. (On this marketing campaign cycle, Democrats moved additional proper of their immigration rhetoric.)

Others inform Castiblanco “that they’re outraged,” he mentioned. “They’ve been ready for years, many years, for a path to legalization. Why ought to these newer migrants get any help?”

Standing outdoors, a lady named Prita Rozario seemed unhappy and drained. “I’m very disgusted and really unhappy, and heartbroken. These individuals are immigrants themselves.”

Rozario, initially from Bangladesh, voted Tuesday as a U.S. citizen.

As she tells us that she solid her poll for Kamala Harris, a lady walks by and yells at Rozario in Spanish, “Silly communist!” earlier than disappearing into the darkish streets of this very deeply divided neighborhood.