New York Metropolis residents in Hispanic and black communities that supported President Trump in enormous numbers within the 2024 election hailed Tuesday’s native immigration raids that nabbed scores of suspected heinous criminals.
Beginning within the Bronx — the place Trump’s help surged 35% between 2020 and 2024 — closely armed federal immigration brokers stormed by way of town, focusing on migrants with warrants for homicide, kidnapping and different heinous crimes, police sources instructed The Publish.
Amongst these arrested was Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 25, an alleged ringleader of the infamous Venezuelan jail gang Tren de Aragua who immigration officers took into custody at an Ogden Avenue condominium in The Bronx.
“Oh, thank God they got him,” stated a resident who lives close to the complicated, visibly relieved the violent thug was taken off the streets.
Elsewhere within the borough, locals expressed comparable sentiments.
“Get them the hell off the street! Get them the hell out of the street so people don’t have to walk in fear,” stated Evelyn Brown, 80, a Bronx resident from Jamaica who voted for Trump.
“Take the damn bad ones away!”
A resident of the Knickerbocker condominium complicated in Washington Heights in deep-blue Manhattan, the place Trump gained 5% in 2024 over his 2020 exhibiting, stated he’s completely happy to see some motion being taken in opposition to criminals however added that he nonetheless hopes some deserving migrant households are supplied a path to security.
The resident — who didn’t wish to give his title — stated he voted for Trump the primary time however didn’t make it to the polls in 2024.
“Too many people came over the border at once, and now it has to be a whole operation,” he stated of the raids.
“I don’t want dangerous people on the street, especially if we’re paying for it. People getting hurt on the street. Why should they get a pass?”
“But some of them are families,” he added of migrants who might find yourself finally being deported, too, due to their unlawful standing.
“I don’t want to see them separated or hurt back home.”
“It’s all a mess.”
In Queens, the place the president noticed his help develop by almost 10.5% from 2020 to 2024, based on Board of Election outcomes, residents stated they have been glad to see criminals taken off the road.
Jason Rodriguez, 41, a forklift driver and safety digicam installer, instructed The Publish whereas in Jackson Heights that stated he’s glad Homeland Safety goes after Tren de Aragua gangbangers however added the ICE raids are additionally having a chilling impact on hardworking, law-abiding migrants who worry being deported.
“Honestly, it’s good to get Tren de Aragua off the streets because they’re dangerous. Trump should deport the criminals,” stated Rodriguez, who was born at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Brooklyn to folks who got here from the Dominican Republic within the Nineteen Sixties.
“Their jails in their own countries are a lot worse than here. They don’t care about being locked up here, so they should be deported,” he added.
However “there are a lot of undocumented, hardworking people busting their ass doing 14- and 16-hour days to support their families,” too, he stated.
“They’re doing it right. They’re contributing to society, unlike the criminals.”
Electrical engineer Damso Vargas, 52, of Elmhurst moved to the US from the Dominican Republic in 2001 and has since develop into a US citizen.
He as soon as labored within the management tower at Punta Cana Worldwide Airport however got here to the US for a higher-paying job.
Vargas stated the vetting of newly arrived migrants had been too lax beneath President Biden and believes the felony component must be snuffed out.
Though he helps Homeland Safety conducting focused raids on felony migrants, he stated he doesn’t need ICE to conduct sweeping searches and deportations.
“If you come to this country, you need to show respect and work hard. You don’t come here to do gang bulls–t,” Vargas stated.
“If you come to my country, I’d expect you to do the right thing.”
Vargas stated there are massive swaths of the borough which have quickly gone downhill because of the inflow of felony migrants.
“I remember in 2010, you could walk around Roosevelt Avenue and enjoy yourself, but now I’m scared to walk around because there are a lot of newly arrived migrant criminals,” he stated.
Dolphin Chung, 57, is a Peruvian green-card holder from Jackson Heights who sells jewellery beneath the 82 Road-Jackson Heights subway station. He’s beforehand owned and run jewellery shops in Harlem and Staten Island.
He helps deporting overseas criminals however doesn’t need mass deportations of migrants.
“The foreign criminals are dangerous, so it’s good to get rid of them,” Chung stated.
“We don’t want the foreign gangs here. But there a lot of people around here who don’t have papers but work very hard. They work from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., seven days a week.”
On Staten Island — a Republican stronghold by metropolis requirements, going for Trump in three consecutive elections — Kevin Morales, 43, a building employee who voted for the president in 2024 however not in 2020, drew a distinction between hardworking migrants and people being rounded up within the raids.
“Listen, there’s too many people here that aren’t looking to make a better life for themselves. Instead they are robbing, shooting and raping. Those are not the kind of immigrants we want here,” he instructed The Publish at Greenridge Plaza in Nice Kills.
“I’m an immigrant and come from a family of immigrants, but we work. We came here to work and make a better life for our children.”
Extra reporting by Joe Marino
