Human rights activists this Friday celebrated the decision of a West Village parking lot to end its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the garage located at 18 Morton Street.
Last week, activists staged a protest in front of the parking lot alongside community organizations, displaying an “ICE parks here” banner and “ICE out of NYC” signs as police watched.
The pressure campaign would have paid off when representatives of Metropolis Technologies, the company that operates the parking lot, reported that they requested to remove nine federal agency vehicles from the site.
“As soon as Chelsea Neighbors United informed us that these nine vehicles were parked on Morton Street, we took immediate action and they are no longer there,” Nick Rosen-Wachs, vice president of communications for Metropolis Technologies, said in an email to the group.
Trudy Rudnick, an organizer with Chelsea Neighbors United, said the movement’s goal goes beyond Manhattan.
“We are very upset that ICE is parking in our neighborhoods and kidnapping our neighbors,” Rudnick said. “Our commitment is clear: there is no parking for ICE at any time, anywhere.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
The Morton Street garage is not the only one singled out by organizers. The group also launched a letter-writing campaign to the Hudson River Park Trust over a long-standing contract that allowed ICE employees to park at Pier 40.
The Hudson River Park Trust announced this year that it will not renew that contract, which expires in June. However, activists are also demanding a formal policy prohibiting any collaboration with ICE or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as legal support for people detained within the park.
Hannah Strauss, co-director of Hands Off NYC, said disrupting ICE access to parking lots is key to her strategy to reduce the agency’s presence in the city.
“When our neighbors organize, our neighborhoods become safer,” Strauss said. “By building collective power and engaging in nonviolent resistance, we are making progress toward reducing ICE’s presence in our city.”
