Robert Rosen

 

What good is it doing to be here? I asked myself as I stood in frigid weather with a few thousand other New Yorkers, in Foley Square, my toes and fingertips aching from the relentless cold. 

 

I was at the January 30 anti-ICE demonstration, a show of solidarity with the people of Minneapolis whose city is under assault by a murderous and unaccountable federal goon squad, supposedly there to deport violent criminals who entered the country illegally. As most people with functioning eyes have figured out by now, that's not what ICE is doing. They've invaded Minneapolis to intimidate the people and the local government. They're there to demonstrate that the Trump Administration can do anything they like, including kill you.

 

Sooner or later, thousands more ICE agents will be coming to New York City.

 

So I told myself I was in Foley Square because the Trump Administration knows they're despised, that New Yorkers despise them more than most, and Trump and his lackeys fear people who stand up to them, as Minneapolitans have done and New Yorkers will do if necessary. The bigger the crowd, I told myself, the more they will fear us. I was just one more body in a mass of angry people.

 

I asked myself other questions, too: When ICE comes to New York, will I have the courage to do what the people of Minneapolis have done? Will I take out my phone and videotape a vicious, out-of-control police force abusing my neighbors, knowing that I can be arrested, beaten, killed and slandered as a domestic terrorist for exercising my First Amendment rights?

 

I'm afraid I'll find out soon enough. A street near my apartment building is a gathering spot for bicycle deliverymen, all of whom appear to be Latin American immigrants. They work for the multitude of local restaurants, and they're there all day, in all kinds of weather. And the restaurants themselves, 10 within a one-block radius, are largely staffed by immigrants—cooks, bus boys, waiters, bartenders. Like all of New York City, my neighborhood is a target-rich environment for ICE. 

 

I don't want to live in a police state. That much I know for sure. So I've been reading up on how to film ICE and found an article in Wired magazine that offers some common sense advice. 

 

There's one other thing I know for sure. The next three years are going to be very difficult, no matter what happens next.

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