The People vs. ICE

"In a community where immigrants contribute much of the labor but live on the margins of the economy, the bikes-mostly used by day laborers to get to and from the corners and lots where they solicit short-term manual-labor jobs-are reminders of the families left in limbo after an ICE abduction. "It's very haunting to me," said Obernauer, a therapist who has grown weary of seeing so many neighbors traumatized by ICE. "The bicycles have a story.""

"The most important equipment UCAN volunteers carry is the camera on their phones. They do not seek to disrupt arrests or interfere physically-that is not the kind of legal risk they want to take on-rather, they aim to document and ensure that ICE knows they are being filmed. Sometimes, she said, ICE vehicles drive away when they see community members recording them."

"As one of the activists coordinating an "Adopt a Day Labor Corner" program in this conservative-leaning part of Long Island, Obernauer recently returned a bike to a family, providing some marginal comfort to people who had lost a loved one to deportation.In contrast to the dramatic, slickly produced videos of ICE raids the White House has publicized, UCAN's assistance is usually quiet and banal."

Linda Obernauer volunteers with United Community Action Network (UCAN) in Suffolk, Long Island and often finds abandoned bicycles left where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have taken someone away. Day laborers commonly use those bikes to travel to corners and lots to solicit short-term manual jobs, and the bikes symbolize families left in limbo after deportations. UCAN runs an "Adopt a Day Labor Corner" program, returns possessions, distributes food, and provides know-your-rights materials while maintaining a neighborhood watch for often-unmarked ICE vehicles. Volunteers document encounters on phone cameras to deter or record ICE actions without physically interfering.

Read at The Nation