ICE Is Looking For Parking in New York City — For a 150-Vehicle Deportation Fleet |
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ICE Is Looking For Parking in New York City — For a 150-Vehicle Deportation Fleet
With its last contract expiring, activists say garage owners should spurn ICE to avoid becoming complicit in Trump’s deportation blitz.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on the hunt for parking in Lower Manhattan — but they’re not just circling the block waiting for a spot to open up. Instead, they’re looking to rent out a whole parking lot.
ICE put out a call for information from parties interested in securing a contract with the agency for up to 150 parking spaces, according to a government procurement document posted online on April 16. The infamous immigration enforcement agency is looking for a lot in the vicinity of its Varick Street field office in Hudson Square, just south of downtown New York City’s tony West Village.
“We should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”
“We should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”
The need for parking of ICE vehicles set off alarms for immigrant advocates like Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, who called on garage owners to resist the temptation of “a quick buck” in exchange for making ICE’s job easier.
“The Trump administration continues to expand its war on immigrants, and in this moment it’s incumbent on private parking facilities to not collude with immigration enforcement that separates families and guts our communities,” Awawdeh said. “New Yorkers are outraged by what we’re seeing day in and day out, and we should all be ensuring that we’re not complicit.”
ICE operates a fleet of vehicles to use in its deportation operations, including unmarked vehicles that agents use to get around and take people into custody. At a downtown lot near its Varick Street office, ICE has stored compact cargo vans with internal cages — the sort used to transport immigrant detainees — according to local news site The City. The contract for that lot is set to expire.
The new request for information about potential contracts says, “The ICE NYC Field Office is seeking no more than 150 exclusive secure, reserved indoor parking spaces to accommodate a mix of SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses.”
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There are at least a dozen parking garages within a quarter mile of the office operated by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations at........