Bronx residents mobilize, foster neighborhood networks as ICE fears grow
Across the city, New Yorkers are mobilizing to protect their most vulnerable neighbors amid rising anticipation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, crackdowns.
Residents of Riverdale, Kingsbridge and Kingsbridge Heights have joined the effort with merchant-outreach initiatives, where volunteers like Lois Harr visit barbershops, restaurants, corner stores and delis with Know Your Rights materials for employees and owners. The packets include instructions on what to do if ICE enters a workplace, how to identify a lawful warrant and how to contact legal services. For immigrant workers who may not know their protections or who fear retaliation the material offer a bridge between practical steps.
And on Dec. 6, more than 150 Bronx residents joined a four-hour boroughwide training hosted by Hands Off NYC, a coalition of unions, grassroots groups and faith partners preparing communities for potential federal enforcement. The program is part of a series rolling out across all five boroughs, each designed to help neighborhoods to be ready and able to respond swiftly and nonviolently should ICE raids, detentions or courthouse arrests escalate.
Whether through federal policy shifts or changes in local cooperation, the potential for enforcement actions to ramp up has grown into a network of dedicated activists prepared to act instantly. Organizers introduced a comprehensive curriculum, touching on everything from knowing your rights to how to safely document and record enforcement activity or how to form block-level teams capable of supporting families in real time. The goal, organizers said, is not merely awareness but spring into action.
For Destiny Cruz, senior organizer of the Working Families Party and Bronx borough lead for Hands Off, the urgency stems from the speed with which political conditions can shift.
“We built this campaign in a moment where we realized, like, no one’s going to step up to the plate except us,” she said. “We know that ICE and federal agents are only making us less safe, and that we need to prepare our people in our neighborhoods and our communities and educate them about their rights.”
That sense of heightened risk is driving the coalition’s focus on community-specific strategy rather than citywide messaging. What happens on one block in the Bronx, Cruz noted, cannot be replicated on a block across the borough.
“When we are thinking about developing our neighborhood rapid response networks, we know what's going to work in Riverdale won't work exactly the same in Hunts Point or Throggs Neck,” she said. “That's why we're impressing on folks the importance of doing neighborhood-specific rapid response networks and creating infrastructures with your neighbors.”
Two Riverdale residents, members of Northwest Bronx Indivisible, Sue Dodell and Ms. Harr, joined the Bronx training with that aim in mind. For Dodell, the decision to attend grew out of escalating worries about shifting norms in federal operations and the potential for aggressive enforcement to reach deeply into local communities.
“I am just concerned for the state of our country that it seems to be authoritarian and is trying to promote fear,” she said. “There are so many examples of our government being authoritarian, hurting our individual rights, ICE is doing it everyday.”
Dodell said the training offered not only practical knowledge but a sense of shared communal resistance.
“It's very affirming,” she said. “You know you're not alone, and it kind of helps with any fears you might have that [ICE is] kind of playing outside any norm rules.”
As Hands Off NYC expands, organizers stress that the infrastructure that matters most will be built not in large gatherings but in the everyday routines of neighborhood life — tenants’ associations, houses of worship, civic groups and local businesses. Those early points of connection shape how effectively communities can locate legal help, confirm credible sightings and organize support for families in distress.
Harr, who also spearheads the volunteer group supporting the Waldo Avenue migrant shelter, Friends of Waldo Sanctuary, said the outreach reflects a shift toward deeper neighborhood responsibility. Many business owners, she noted, never discussed critical steps with employees, who may be at risk — from memorizing phone numbers and having an emergency plan for their children in case of emergency. Helping them prepare, she said, is both civic duty and community safety planning.
“We just need to keep at it,” she said. “You can make change happen, and significant change, and without it being violent.”
For Harr and Dodell, the training confirmed that the Bronx will not be waiting for a crisis to begin to prepare to stand up for their neighbors. The work ahead, they said, will depend on expanding the number of residents who understand their rights and on strengthening the neighborhood ties that will determine how well communities withstand whatever is to come.
“As a lifelong Bronxite, I take away this sense of pride that we will have each other's backs in any and every moment,” Cruz told The Press. “People left feeling like they have the knowledge they need to build the systems and infrastructure to support each other. The only people who know how to protect us, so we need to be able to talk to our neighbors confidently and say we know what we’re going to do next.”
