U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on the hunt for parking in Lower Manhattan \u2014 but they\u2019re not just circling the block waiting for a spot to open up. Instead, they\u2019re looking to rent out a whole parking lot.<\/p>\n
ICE put out a call for information from parties interested in securing a contract with the agency for up to 150 parking spaces, according to a government procurement document posted online on April 16. The infamous immigration enforcement agency is looking for a lot in the vicinity of its Varick Street field office in Hudson Square, just south of downtown New York City\u2019s tony West Village.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should all be ensuring that we\u2019re not complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The need for parking of ICE vehicles set off alarms for immigrant advocates like Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, who called on garage owners to resist the temptation of \u201ca quick buck\u201d in exchange for making ICE\u2019s job easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration continues to expand its war on immigrants, and in this moment it\u2019s incumbent on private parking facilities to not collude with immigration enforcement that separates families and guts our communities,\u201d Awawdeh said. \u201cNew Yorkers are outraged by what we\u2019re seeing day in and day out, and we should all be ensuring that we\u2019re not complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n
ICE operates a fleet of vehicles to use in its deportation operations, including unmarked vehicles that agents use to get around and take people into custody. At a downtown lot near its Varick Street office, ICE has stored compact cargo vans with internal cages \u2014 the sort used to transport immigrant detainees \u2014 \u00a0according to local news site The City<\/a>. The contract for that lot is set to expire.<\/p>\n The new request for information about potential contracts says, \u201cThe ICE NYC Field Office is seeking no more than 150 exclusive secure, reserved indoor parking spaces to accommodate a mix of SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses.\u201d<\/p>\n There are at least a dozen parking garages within a quarter mile of the office operated by ICE\u2019s Enforcement and Removal Operations at Varick and West Houston streets, the distance specified in the request for information. Among the other requirements listed are 24\/7 security monitoring, a single designated space within the facility for ICE vehicles, key-card access controlled by ICE, and a minimum height clearance of 7 feet and 6 inches.\u00a0(ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n The posting of the procurement document comes as one of the agency\u2019s go-to parking spots in the area is set to become unavailable to ICE vehicles. In January, the Hudson River Park Trust, a publicly owned corporation overseen by the state and the city which administers the garage at Pier 40, announced it would allow its contract for ICE parking at a waterfront garage to expire.<\/p>\n A New York-based ICE observer, who asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation, told The Intercept they had seen unmarked ICE vehicles used for deportation operations using the Pier 40 garage as recently as last week.<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Trust had maintained the contract with ICE dating back to 2004, but, amid the mounting criticism of ICE for its instrumental role in President Donald Trump\u2019s hyper-aggressive immigration crackdown, the corporation said it was no longer interested in providing space or taking ICE money.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trust is currently in the last year of a five-year parking contract that commenced during the previous federal administration and does not intend to renew the contract,\u201d a spokesperson for the organization told The City<\/a>. News of the group\u2019s continued business with ICE was first reported by Sludge<\/a>, and its intent to let the contract expire was first reported by Hell Gate<\/a>, another local news site.<\/p>\n It was unclear from the new request for information if the need for parking spaces is meant to address existing demand for ICE parking or whether it would be intended to accommodate any increased presence of ICE vehicles in Manhattan. In the 15 months since Trump returned to power, immigrant advocates in the city have waited in uneasy anticipation for a surge of Department of Homeland Security agents like those seen in Chicago<\/a>, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thus far, it hasn\u2019t arrived. But amid periodic threats from the Trump administration to target so-called sanctuary cities like New York, the threat of a large-scale surge remains on the minds of immigrants and their supporters.<\/p>\n For ICE observers in the city, monitoring ICE parking facilities is a key part of keeping tabs on the agency and trying to divine its upcoming moves.<\/p>\n \u201cAgents are important to this process, but the vehicles they move in are of almost equal importance, and many of these vehicles begin and end their days at these contract lots,\u201d said the New York-based ICE observer. \u201cThey have aggressive abduction quotas that they\u2019re pursuing, and when you think about what they need to reach those quotas, people often think about detention capacity, but that\u2019s the post-abduction side. The pre-abduction side is where you put all the goddamn cars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on the hunt for parking in Lower Manhattan \u2014 but they\u2019re not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4913,45750,4920,18038,9,24,55,54,56,4912,4917,4918,4919,4916,73801,18039],"class_list":{"0":"post-204670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-article-type-article-post","9":"tag-day-tuesday","10":"tag-language-english","11":"tag-medium","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-page-type-article","18":"tag-partner-factiva","19":"tag-partner-smart-news","20":"tag-partner-social-flow","21":"tag-subject-justice","22":"tag-time-13-00","23":"tag-wc-0-999"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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