NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean and other immigrant day labourers have participated in a “buy-in” and rally at the Home Depot in lower Manhattan, demanding that the company take immediate action to stop the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in and around its stores nationwide.
Advocates joined the workers from the National Day Labourer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).
NYIC’s president and chief executive officer, Murad Awawdeh, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that community members bought and returned ice scrapers in an act of protest, followed by a rally, picket line, chorus, and speakers.
“Across the country, Home Depot locations have become flashpoints in a growing human rights crisis,” he said.
“Immigration raids at and around stores have led to chaotic, violent, and frightening encounters—not only for immigrant workers and day laborers, but also for customers and surrounding communities.
“Home Depot has failed to confront these escalating dangers, forcing communities to act. In New York City, there have been multiple instances of ICE abductions at Home Depots across the city in recent months.
Awawdeh said for decades, Home Depots across the country have been essential places for day labourers to find work, and working people to purchase supplies, but, under the Trump administration, Home Depots have become flashpoints for federal immigration enforcement–sites of raids that terrorise and sweep up hardworking people simply trying to earn a living and support their families.
“Ordinary mornings and afternoons spent waiting for work or buying materials needed for jobs have instead become filled with fear and anxiety. ICE’s violent attacks on our immigrant neighbors at and around Home Depots make our neighbourhoods less safe for everyone,” he said.
Awawdeh said Home Depot must not allow its stores to be a staging ground for ICE operations and must speak out against these abductions, adding that the company has “a responsibility to ensure their stores remain safe spaces, where anyone can go shopping, and workers can seek employment without fear of being detained or deported.
NDLON’s co-executive director, Pablo Alvarado, said ICE has turned Home Depot into “a hunting ground for our people, and Home Depot let it happen.
“So, we took our message inside: we won’t let any store become a trap. Immigrants deserve to work and live without fear.”
The executive director of the People’s Forum, Manolo De Los Santos, said that “across the country, communities are rising against the brutality of ICE, and today, New Yorkers have shown that we won’t stand for Home Depot’s complicity in this brutality.
“People everywhere are taking to the streets in huge numbers to demand an end to the attacks on immigrant communities by the Trump administration and their billionaire agenda, and we will only get stronger,” he added.
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