The activists rallied a group of community organizations outside the garage last week, standing behind a banner reading, “ICE parks here,” in black and red letters and carrying signs saying, “ICE out of NYC,” while police looked on.
The pressure campaign appeared to have its intended effect as representatives from the lot’s operator, Metropolis Technologies, announced that it asked the agency to get nine vehicles parked there out of the garage.
“As soon as Chelsea Neighbors United made us aware that these nine vehicles were parked at Morton Street, we took immediate action and these vehicles are no longer parked with Metropolis.” Nick Rosen-Wachs, the vice president of communications for Metropolis Technologies, stated in an email sent to the group.
Trudy Rudnick, an organizer with Chelsea Neighbors United, one of the groups mounting the pressure campaign, said their goal goes beyond the Manhattan community.
“We are really angry that ICE is parking in our neighborhoods and kidnapping our neighbors,” Rudnick said in a statement. “Our commitment is clear: No parking for ICE anytime, anywhere.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
The Morton Street garage is not the only parking lot the group had named and shamed. Organizers previously mounted a letter-writing campaign calling on the Hudson River Park Trust to atone for a decades-long contract with ICE to let the agency’s employees park vehicles at Pier 40.
The Trust, which receives some public funding, announced earlier this year that it would not renew its parking contract with ICE, which expires in June. But advocates said that didn’t go far enough; the campaign has called on the board of the park steward nonprofit to create a formal policy prohibiting any collaboration with ICE or DHS, donations to immigrant-led groups, and footing the legal bills for anyone detained within the park.
Hudson River Park Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hannah Strauss, co-director of Hands Off NYC, an organizer of the campaign, said that disrupting ICE’s parking is a key element in the push to get ICE out of NYC streets.
The burgeoning movement scrutinizing ICE’s parking contracts and presence in NYC is part of a larger citywide movement made up of neighborhood groups, unions, and community organizations under the Hands Off NYC umbrella, Strauss said in a statement.
“When our neighbors are organized, our neighborhoods become safer,” she said. “By building our collective power and awareness at the neighborhood level, and engaging in effective nonviolent resistance like we saw on Thursday, we are making strides to shrink ICE’s foothold in our city.”
