ICE deportation efforts protested in Westbury

About 100 protesters gathered Sunday in Westbury to assail the Trump administration's  escalation of deportation efforts aimed at immigrants in the country illegally, a crackdown that advocates said they haven’t seen in decades, if ever.

 Waving signs with messages that included "ICE out of Long Island," "Immigrants Belong Here" and "Protect Due Process," the protesters chanted as cars passed by, some drivers beeping their support.

Immigration agents are "terrorizing the community right now," said Nadia Marin-Molina, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and a longtime immigrant advocate on Long Island.

"I’ve been doing this for decades and I’ve never seen this level of ICE activity," she said. "I’ve never seen this type of attack on the community."

Sunday's demonstration came as National Guard troops, on the orders of President Donald Trump, hit the streets of downtown Los Angeles to help quell protests in recent days over the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's deportation efforts. Protesters on Saturday east of Los Angeles hurled chunks of cement and rocks at federal agents posted near a Home Depot.

Marin-Molina and other advocates and immigrants said agents from ICE and other law enforcement agencies have been blanketing Long Island this past week and arresting immigrants outside Home Depots, Lowe's, delis, supermarkets and other places where they gather, sometimes looking for work.

They said dozens of people were detained. Many immigrants are afraid to go to work, go shopping or send their children to school, advocates said.

Long Island "is on fire," said Susan Gottehrer, director of the Nassau County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "People are living in so much fear that they can't call the police, that they can't act as witnesses, they're afraid to call ambulances. It's really scary. It's like from another country. From the past."

Advocates said they have been documenting some of the arrests with photographs and video in communities including Brentwood, Freeport, Glen Cove, Hempstead and Westbury — all areas with large immigrant populations.

The escalation appeared to be part of a nationwide effort by the Trump administration to boost the number of immigrants they are arresting and deporting who are living here illegally.

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Donald Trump, told Fox News host Sean Hannity on May 29 the federal government is aiming to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day.

Thomas Homan, the White House border czar, told reporters recently that "you’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation. We’re going to flood the zone."

Last week, ICE arrests topped 100,000, with more than 2,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to CBS News, up from the 600 arrests a day on average since Trump's return to the White House, according to CBS News.

Daniel Lozano, 26, an electrician who lives in Huntington, said he was brought by his parents from Colombia to the United States when he was a year old. He turned out for Sunday's protest to support other immigrants, he said.

"It is really awful to see them snatching away people from our communities that are there to support it," he said. As an electrician, "I've worked with these people, so I know how hardworking these people are, and they are not criminals."

Cheryl Keshner, one of the protesters and an advocate with the Long Island Immigrant Justice Coalition, said she believes local businesses will suffer from the crackdown because immigrants without legal documentation fill many jobs in restaurants, factories and landscaping.

"They're afraid to show up for work. They're afraid to show up even to buy a piece of bread," she said. "And a lot of the businesses are going to lose the skilled, talented labor that they depend upon."

With AP