What can Long Islanders do to stand up for immigrants' rights?

The Trump administration’s mass deportation raids have laid a suffocating blanket of fear across Nassau and Suffolk counties. Every morning, advocates on chat groups share sightings of men in masks and military gear. Who will be abducted today? How many children will lose their parents? Where will ICE strike next?

We’re all settling into our summer routines. But for immigrants, it’s different. Like everyone, they need to go to work, take kids to school, see the doctor, buy groceries, look in on loved ones. Some have appointments in immigration court. They know that if they go out for the day, they may never come home. Under a crushing weight of dread, they carry on.

This is insanity. We Long Islanders know our communities. We know our hometowns are not zones that need to be liberated by paramilitary squads. We know there is no “alien criminal” threat from the immigrants in our families and on our blocks, whose children go to school with ours, whom we hire to clean our yards, trim our trees and take care of our elderly and sick. And we know that immigrants keep our economy humming.

We know good people are being brutalized every day by ICE, but is there anything ordinary Long Islanders can do about it?

We’re not totally helpless in the face of relentless brute force. A phrase day laborers often use is “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.” It means only the people save the people — we can’t wait for politicians or courts or benevolent philanthropists to save us. Ordinary people can make a difference by standing up and showing up for immigrants. Nonviolent resistance and mutual defense, rooted in love, can move hearts and challenge abuses of power.

Just in the last few weeks, people across Long Island have done exactly this. Port Washington rallied around Fernando Mejia, a beloved bagel store manager originally from El Salvador, who was taken away. Friends and customers fiercely defended him, and helped get him a temporary reprieve.

There are other ways people can make a difference: Hire a day laborer and patronize immigrant businesses. The day laborers who gather near 7-Elevens and Home Depots, who fill out gardening and landscaping and construction crews, need work, just as homeowners and contractors need their skills.

Immigration advocates in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere are urging citizen allies to “adopt” a day labor corner – to publicly support some of our most vulnerable neighbors. We can also urge lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul to support New York for All, a state bill to prevent local law enforcement from being drawn into ICE’s vastly expanding dragnet.

When you defend immigrants, you’re defending the Constitution and opposing criminality. It’s completely legal for a day laborer, undocumented or not, to look for work on a sidewalk. But it is against the law to refuse to pay them their wages, or expose them to illegal workplace dangers — or to abduct them without reason or a warrant. When immigrants are driven deeper into the shadows, exploitation and abuse flourish. When they are robbed of their livelihoods, all of us are robbed of their vital contributions.

Amid all this anti-immigrant darkness, let’s shine a light. Like the rest of us, immigrants are following the rules,, running their businesses and paying their taxes. But unlike citizen neighbors, they are doing this with targets on their backs. That’s unjust and destructive, and it’s up to us to help stop it.

This guest essay reflects the views of Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which advocates for immigrants and low-wage workers.