By Emma Prashad
At 8 a.m. on Nov. 4, Chelsea Vasquez, 20, a Home Depot employee in Elmont, looked out the window of her home and saw a cluster of unmarked cars gathered near the fire station. Her parents, leaving for work, noticed the same scene. “There were quite a few agents, and it looked like they were strategizing,” she said.
Within minutes, those same agents appeared in the Target and Home Depot parking lot less than a mile away, where bystanders later recorded video of agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal law enforcement agency under the supervision of the Department of Homeland Security, detaining individuals in the middle of the busy shopping area. The Long Island ICE Tracker, a project of the nonprofit immigrant-rights group Islip Forward, also received alerts about the incident and circulated them to residents almost immediately.
“From that moment, we all assumed there would be a raid later in the day,” Vasquez said. “This time, it happened faster than anyone expected.”
Rising fear and daily impact
For many immigrant residents of Nassau County, advocates and community organizers say daily life has become defined by fear and uncertainty, punctuated by sudden appearances of masked agents and unexpected detentions in places where people shop, work or take their children to school.
Nassau County residents say the effects of the raids extend beyond fear. They reverberate into the workforce, local businesses, school enrollment and the county’s overall economic health.
Vasquez said the raid was not surprising, but the impact was immediate. “There are far fewer immigrants or workers outside now,” she said. “Before, you would see a row of men waiting or offering help. I don’t see that anymore.”
Many of the men who gather outside Home Depot are day laborers waiting to be hired by contractors for construction or landscaping jobs. Advocates say these locations have increasingly become targets for ICE pickups.
Folks at Vasquez’s family’s restaurant in Elmont have heard similar stories from customers. People are limiting where they go, avoiding parking lots known for day laborers and warning one another through group chats or community Facebook posts whenever ICE vehicles appear.
Since January, the Long Island ICE Tracker has verified 249 ICE sightings across Long Island. “People who are scared and want to avoid certain areas can upload sightings,” said Josue Fuentes, the organization’s deputy director. “Alerts go out within minutes because these sightings matter for people’s safety.”
In certain neighborhoods, the warnings are even more organized. Fuentes said patterns have emerged, with ICE activity most often reported during morning hours and school drop-off times in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods such as Brentwood, Central Islip and parts of Nassau County like Elmont and Hempstead, among others. “These families are hardworking. They are just trying to go to work and get their kids to school,” Fuentes said. “They feel attacked and targeted.”
Vasquez said she sees the effects every day she goes to work. The parking lot where dozens of men once waited for work is almost empty now. Customers whisper about sightings. Workers warn one another if a suspicious vehicle appears.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “People just want to work and live their lives. But after what happened, things don’t feel the same.”
Fuentes echoed that sentiment. “If people understood how dangerous ICE actually is, maybe something would change,” he said. “The issue is real. It affects real families, and it’s happening right here.”
Economic effects across Long Island
While fear dominates daily life, economists say the consequences reach beyond emotion. Gregory DeFreitas, a professor of economics at Hofstra University, said the impact of ICE activity is being felt in workplaces across the region.
“Immigrants make up nearly one fourth of the labor force on Long Island,” he said. “Given the numbers and how diverse their jobs are, even creating uncertainty about whether they will be allowed to stay is negative economically.”
Long Island is home to an estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants, according to recent analyses by the Pew Research Center and the Migration Policy Institute. Undocumented immigrants on Long Island contribute hundreds of millions annually in state and local taxes and drive billions in consumer spending, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute.
Long Island relies heavily on immigrant workers across its largest industries, including health care, construction, landscaping and home health care. Many immigrants also run small businesses and spend billions of dollars themselves.
“There are huge economic inputs up to billions of dollars,” DeFreitas said. “That translates into billions potentially in lost revenue, lost jobs, lost companies if enough people are scared into leaving.”
“Fear changes behavior,” DeFreitas said. Workers may decline shifts, avoid certain job sites or refuse to report wage theft and dangerous conditions, while employers struggle to keep staff or turn to automation.
Home Depot, once a reliable stop for contractors to pick up extra help, is already feeling the shift. “Contractors are sending homeowners inside to buy materials instead of coming themselves,” Vasquez said. “People do not feel safe.”
This drop in day laborers, fixtures in many communities, means a loss of income not just for workers but for the businesses that they support.
Political response
Legal experts say ICE policies have intensified mistrust at the local level. Andrew Case, supervising counsel at LatinoJustice, a national nonprofit that advances equity and justice for Latinx communities, recently helped win a major lawsuit against the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office for illegally holding immigrants for ICE beyond their release dates. Over an eight-year period, 674 people were unlawfully detained.
Now, he and other attorneys are suing Nassau County for entering a 287(g) task force agreement, which allows local officers to act as immigration agents.
“A task force 287(g) agreement purports to give officers the right to directly enforce immigration law,” Case said. “We believe New York state law does not permit local law enforcement to arrest and detain people on immigration charges.”
Case said he is also concerned about racial profiling. “ICE is acting indiscriminately,” he said. “They appear to be engaging in racial profiling, which is illegal.”
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Northeast director Todd Lyons has defended the agency’s recent operations, saying in an agency statement that ICE will continue to enforce federal immigration laws amid heightened activity, emphasizing that agents will pursue enforcement actions where officials believe public safety and compliance require it.
Elected leaders have echoed concerns about the rise in enforcement. Antonio Delgado, New York’s lieutenant governor, raised alarm over ICE’s growing presence during a speech at New York for All: A Conversation on ICE and Immigrationin Brentwood, describing scenes of agents appearing at laundromats, delis and even schools. “Our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, our children, they are being terrorized,” Delgado said at the event, attended by a Long Island Advocate reporter. He criticized the lack of state legislation limiting cooperation with ICE and argued that New York must offer stronger protections, particularly in diverse communities.
Delgado, who supports legislation such as “New York for All,” which would restrict collaboration between state and local law enforcement and ICE, acknowledged that the state has yet to take action. “We should be doing a lot more,” he said.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican from Atlantic Beach, has publicly supported stronger immigration enforcement, saying the county’s partnership with federal authorities is focused on removing criminals and keeping communities safe. “This program is exclusively designed to remove criminals from our communities who are here illegally. It is not designed to target law-abiding …,” Blakeman said. Critics argue that the county’s involvement with ICE deepens fear among immigrant families.
