{"id":45316,"date":"2025-11-19T21:43:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45316\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T21:43:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:43:23","slug":"activists-hold-candlelight-vigil-outside-malliotakis-bay-ridge-office-for-immigrants-in-ice-custody-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45316\/","title":{"rendered":"Activists hold candlelight vigil outside Malliotakis\u2019 Bay Ridge office for immigrants in ICE custody \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ramp up enforcement actions against immigrant communities \u2014 over the weekend, masked agents targeted Charlotte, North Carolina, a sanctuary city, detaining more than 130 people \u2014 activists with Indivisible Brooklyn<\/a>, an all-volunteer grassroots group that organizes actions and events to promote justice and hold elected officials accountable, held a candlelight vigil outside U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis\u2019 Bay Ridge office on Nov. 17 for the \u201cdisappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event was held in solidarity with thousands of immigrants detained by ICE and CBP. A similar vigil took place simultaneously outside the representative\u2019s Staten Island office, organized by the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church.<\/p>\n

Holding signs with images of immigrants currently in or who have died in ICE custody, activists called on the Republican lawmaker to denounce Trump-era immigration policies that detain immigrants without legal representation, violating due process.<\/p>\n

\"\"Activists with Indivisible Brooklyn held a candlelight vigil outside U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis\u2019 office for immigrants in ICE custody. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann \"\"Activists with Indivisble Brooklyn held a candle light vigil outside U.S. Rep. Nicolai Malliotakis\u2019s office for immigrants in ICE custody. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

In October, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported deporting 527,000 immigrants, claiming 70% of ICE arrests involved immigrants charged with or convicted of a crime.\n<\/p>\n

However, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse<\/a> (TRAC), a research and data organization founded in 1989 at Syracuse University, reported that as of Sept. 21, 42,755 (71.5%) of the 59,762 immigrants held in ICE detention had no criminal convictions. Those with records were convicted of minor offenses, including traffic violations. As of August 2025, immigration courts had recorded 505,599 new cases, with only 1.59% based on alleged criminal activity.<\/p>\n

According to Human Rights First<\/a>, the Trump administration carried out 10,672 ICE flights \u2014 including removal, removal-related, and domestic transfer, or \u201cshuffle,\u201d flights \u2014 through Oct. 31. Often, immigrants had no connection to the countries to which they were deported.<\/p>\n

The American Immigration Council<\/a> reported that as of Sept. 29, 23 people had died in ICE custody, an increase of 400% compared with the previous four years combined. ProPublica<\/a> found that more than 170 Americans, including nearly 20 children, were detained by masked ICE agents during the first nine months of the second Trump administration.<\/p>\n

An educator and Indivisible activist shared stories of students detained by ICE, including Sara Velasquez Gomez, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia with her family in 2022.\n<\/p>\n

Last June, Velasquez Gomez graduated at the top of her class from Port Richmond High School in Staten Island and then worked at a warehouse in New Jersey. In late October, she and several others were detained by ICE and are currently held out of state, according to the Staten Island Advance.<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tell our students, do the right thing, work hard, get an education, follow the rules, and you\u2019ll succeed. Sarah did all of those things, and what happened to her?\u201d the activist asked.<\/p>\n

Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge, has been organizing a weekly \u201cVigil for Democracy\u201d outside the Metropolitan Detention Center<\/a> in Sunset Park, where some immigrant detainees are held.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz noted many immigrants were retraumatized by masked ICE agents. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n

Ruiz told Brooklyn Paper that ICE agents had arrested a Sunset Park resident on Monday morning using a facial recognition app called \u201cMobile Fortify.\u201d<\/p>\n

The app allows an ICE agent to point a smartphone camera at anyone; it compares the person\u2019s face against government databases containing millions of images and grants instant access to their information. The app also allows contactless fingerprint collection. Civil liberties groups, including the ACLU<\/a>, have raised concerns about potential misuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s happening, you know? Another family called me. They cannot find a friend [who has been missing] since Wednesday, and they don\u2019t really know where to look. And that\u2019s the problem, you know,\u201d Ruiz said, noting that many immigrants were retraumatized by masked ICE agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have masked people taking away [people], it triggers a lot of the trauma that people are fleeing from. It\u2019s a complex phenomenon that we have in our hands here, very dehumanizing. The intention is to inflict or inject terror into our community, which is what it\u2019s doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Indivisible organizer Lee Crawford said organizations are preparing for an \u201cescalated\u201d federal presence in New York City and encouraged attendees to join a \u201cHands Off NYC\u201d<\/a> training session.<\/p>\n

Similar to training and organizing during the Civil Rights Era in the South, the sessions provide skills training including Know Your Rights, ICE Watch, and organizing and mobilization strategies.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are city-wide trainings in every borough coming up, so that we can protect one another and our communities,\u201d Crawford said.
\n\"\"Activists with Indivisble Brooklyn held a candle light vigil outside U.S. Rep. Nicolai Malliotakis\u2019s office for immigrants in ICE custody. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann\n<\/p>\n

Carol Smolenski called herself a \u201cstalwart\u201d attendee of \u201cMalliotakis Monday,\u201d a bi-weekly protest outside the rep\u2019s Bay Ridge office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to work for an international agency, and these are the kinds of stories you hear about happening in other countries, in Guatemala, in the Philippines. The fact that we are now confronting this here, masked men kidnapping people off the street, and my representative says nothing about it, that\u2019s why I\u2019m out here,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat happened to my country? It\u2019s not supposed to be like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malliotakis\u2019 office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ramp up enforcement actions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[25931,98,100,99,25932,25933,25934,2035,3125,6476,2301,25935,25936,9,24,370,63,25937,25938,25939],"class_list":["post-45316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-aclu","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-candle-light-protest","tag-cbp","tag-congress-woman-nicole-malliotakis","tag-ice","tag-ice-agents","tag-immigrant","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-agency","tag-indivisible-brooklyn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-reverend-juan-carlos-ruiz","tag-sara-velasquez-gomez","tag-u-s-customs-and-border-protection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45316","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=45316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}