Over 48 percent of Queens residents are foreign-born. Few counties in the U.S. have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents.
“We live in the most diverse borough in the United States, and yet we have something like this?” said Flynn, who was on his way to pick his daughter up from Japanese lessons when he saw the banners.
Saturday’s display was far from the first time Patriot Front has hung banners from overpasses. The tactic appears to be a common one for the hate group, which also holds marches and plasters signs in public places to get its message out there.
Similar banners were hung in New York City in 2020, when the signs were again hung on the LIE. The demonstration was part of a larger effort to place 20 banners in 13 states, the New York Post reported at the time.
The signs hung in 2020 were taken down by the DOT after they were notified about them, the Post reported.
It’s unclear if the city had any response at all to the banners hung this weekend.
Rachel Wilkes, a Brooklyn resident who saw the banners hanging on the expressway near the Queens Center Mall on Saturday, said that like Flynn, she had issues reporting the signs to the city.
After recounting a time she was told to call the police if she ever saw hate symbols posted in her neighborhood, Wilkes called 911, where an operator sent her to an automated 311 message. Wilkes then said she attempted to log a 311 complaint on the city’s app, but didn’t know where in the app to report the white nationalist advertisement campaign.
She then called the NYPD’s Hate Crime Division and was told that the police would look into the incident. The operator did not take her information.
Like Flynn, Wilkes said she thought it was important the city know about the signs.
“It’s disgusting,” Wilkes said. “You’re not allowed to just do advertising for your neo-Nazi group on the LIE.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who didn’t know about the banners until the Eagle asked him about them on Monday at an unrelated press conference, was incensed by the signs.
“I’m a Black borough president, what do you think my reaction is to white nationalists hanging banners in Queens?” Richards said. “There’s a fine line between First Amendment rights, so I also want to honor that. But this has no place in Queens.”