When federal agents descended on our Manhattan community on October 21, they expected fear. They got defiance. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted sweeping raids across our lower Manhattan neighborhood, New Yorkers did what we do best: We showed up for each other.
The clips are powerful: strangers forming human chains, residents flooding the streets with their phones raised to document the violations, community organizations mobilizing within minutes. This wasn't chaos. This was New York being most authentically itself, a city that has always understood that our strength lies in our refusal to let anyone become collateral damage.
Now, in a remarkable act of institutional courage, New York Attorney General Letitia James has announced she is investigating the ICE operation, initiated by one of the MAGA influencers who recently met with President Donald Trump at the White House. This is the same AG who has been relentlessly attacked by the Trump administration for her work holding powerful interests accountable. Her decision to investigate federal overreach even as she faces her own federal targeting sends an unmistakable message: New York will not be intimidated.
This attack on Manhattan follows a clear pattern. The Trump administration has systematically unleashed aggressive enforcement actions on blue cities, from Chicago to Portland, targeting communities that refuse to abandon their neighbors. These aren't immigration enforcement operations. They're political retribution against cities that dare to believe in the radical notion that all people deserve dignity and safety.
We have each other, and we have a vision of the future that doesn't require sacrificing our neighbors for our own safety.
The timing in NYC is no accident. With just two weeks until our mayoral election, Trump's forces are attempting to inject fear into our democratic process. This happened the same week his Justice Department announced it would "monitor" elections in California and New Jersey, deploying federal observers to heavily immigrant communities ahead of their November 4th votes. Candidate Zohran Mamdani, a young Muslim progressive who represents the multiethnic, working-class New York that Trump despises, has faced constant attacks from right-wing media and Trump allies and Trump himself. They want us afraid. They want us divided. They want us to turn on each other in exchange for some false promise of security.
We refuse.
Portland showed us the way forward. When federal forces occupied their city, Portlanders responded with their trademark creativity and determination. They organized a World Naked Bike Ride to protest ICE, thousands strong, transforming a beloved annual tradition into an act of resistance. They danced in frog costumes. They made joy their weapon against authoritarianism. Most importantly, they refused to let fear dictate their response.
Fellow New Yorkers, we must be equally ourselves. This city's superpower has always been our diversity, our density, our insistence on showing up for one another. During the pandemic, hundreds of mutual aid networks materialized overnight. Neighbors checked on neighbors. People masked and distanced not just to protect themselves, but to protect the vulnerable among us. That's the New York that endures, the one that no amount of federal intimidation can break.
We are a city of thousands of villages pressed against each other, each block a universe unto itself. On my block, like on blocks across this city, we have made a commitment to refuse letting anyone become disposable. That ethic extends from our immediate neighbors to our broader community to the strangers we pass on the subway platform. This is not sentiment. This is how we survive.
The coming weeks will test us. More raids are likely. More intimidation tactics. More attempts to fracture our solidarity. But we have something the Trump administration fundamentally misunderstands: We have each other, and we have a vision of the future that doesn't require sacrificing our neighbors for our own safety.
So we will show up. Those of us who can vote will turn out in numbers that dwarf Trump's wildest rally fantasies. We will support our attorney general as she investigates federal overreach. We will continue our mutual aid work, our organizing, our insistence on care over fear. We will be loud, visible, and unapologetic about protecting our community.
Trump spent his life in a gilded Manhattan tower, but he never experienced New York. He never felt the rhythm of thousands of bodies adjusting their pace on the subway stairs. He never witnessed the spontaneous networks of care that emerge in crisis. He never understood that in this city, you are never truly alone.
That's his loss and our strength. Because we know what he never learned: The future belongs to those who refuse to trade human dignity for political power. It belongs to the cities that show up for their most vulnerable. It belongs to the communities that respond to violence with solidarity.
It belongs to New York. It belongs to the sidewalk vendors on Canal Street. It belongs to the food delivery workers racing through traffic to make sure our dinner arrives quickly. It belongs to the mixed-status families living in fear but showing up anyway. It belongs to the undocumented essential workers who kept this city alive during the pandemic. It belongs to the trans New Yorkers navigating hostile federal policy. It belongs to the asylum seekers sleeping in shelters while politicians debate their humanity.
The future belongs to every person Trump and his administration have deemed disposable. Every immigrant, every person of color, every LGBTQ+ New Yorker, every person practicing their faith freely, every person demanding that their labor be valued and their lives protected. They are not obstacles to our city's future. They are the future.
And all of us in New York will fight like hell to make sure they're here to see it.
