Horrified Canal Street vendors recounted on Wednesday the moment their friends and colleagues were arrested by masked ICE agents in a swift and physical raid on Chinatown.
Sidewalks along Canal Street in Lower Manhattan were eerily empty the day after federal agents conducted the sweep of the area and cuffed dozens of vendors, purportedly as a crackdown on counterfeit merchandise sales — something which the feds had traditionally left to the NYPD.
Chaos ensued the afternoon prior as fuming passersby pleaded with the Feds to release the immigrants, only for things to escalate into a brutal clash.
As the dust settled on Oct. 22, Nwa Ngam, who sells sweatshirts on Lafayette Street, recalled watching helplessly on Tuesday as a friend of over a decade and a half was whisked away in handcuffs without explanation — even though he had an official NYC vendor ID around his neck.
“I know him. That’s his vendor’s license. You see his license? So, he wasn’t an illegal vendor, like they said,” Ngam said when amNewYork showed her a photograph of her friend being detained. ”I know him to be a hard-working man who has been in Chinatown for the last 16, 17 years. He sells cellphone cases, comes to work, and goes home every day.”
Ngam told amNewYork that the ICE agents also approached her, but she was able to show them identification proving that she is an American citizen.
“I am a citizen, and my husband told them that she is a citizen, so I think that’s why they left,” she said.
The raid and ongoing Trump immigration crackdown has bred an environment of fear, she noted.
“A lot of people are scared. If I was illegal, I would be scared too, because I left my kids at home, at school to come here. What if I went into custody? What if they took me? What would happen to my kids?” she said. “Everybody needs to stand up. You cannot just be safe and other people be unsafe. We all have to do our part.”
Another nearby street vendor who sells sunglasses and identified himself to amNewYork as Michael also said he was stopped by federal agents.
“The way they did it was unprofessional. They came and harassed me, too. They came to me, asked for ID. I asked them if I had committed any crime, and they took off,” Michael said.
Michael also recalled witnessing the moment ICE clashed with New Yorkers who demanded they leave the vendors. With tasers and shields drawn, people were tackled and shoved into traffic, with citizens being arrested in the process.
“Why did they cover their faces to go out and harass people? I want to see what you look like. They complain about the majority of muslims covering their faces. But then we have federal employees go out there, cover their faces up,” Michael said. “They are like the mafia.”
In addition to vendors on the ground, a slew of elected officials also spoke out about the incident, including local City Council Member Christopher Marte, who also watched the brawl unfold.
“We saw up to 70 to 80 ICE agents physically take a New Yorker and put him in a car, push press and bystanders. This is Trump’s response to 100,000 people protesting this weekend that we shouldn’t have a king in the White House,” Marte said.
