United States
Along with Gaby Del Valle, Felipe runs the weekly immigration policy-focused newsletter BORDER/LINES (borderlines.substack.com). He is a former reporter for the investigative immigration news site Documented, and has written for The New Republic, The Intercept, The Nation, The Appeal, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, The Village Voice, and other publications.
He is a lecturer at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and a graduate of New York University, the Dow Jones News Fund (for data journalism), and The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. He is a fan of documents and data, and skeptical of conventional wisdom. He sometimes shoots his own photographs and video.
“Sanctuary city” is among those political terms that engender emotions as strong as the actual understanding of the term is weak. Despite popular notions that it denotes a jurisdiction where immigrants are actively shielded from immigration enforcement or allowed to commit crimes, all it really means is that a locality or state declines to actively participate in immigration enforcement.
It's been two weeks since a whistleblower complaint involving the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC), an ICE detention facility in Georgia, was first reported in The Intercept .
To say the words "El Mozote" in El Salvador is to conjure up an event that is at once concrete and obscure-an atrocity whose basic facts are well known and documented in grisly detail, but whose motivations and architects have remained stubbornly obscure, or unaccountable.
María had only been in the United States for about a year when the pandemic hit. She had entered the country without documentation and settled in Brooklyn, finding some work under the table preparing tamales and doing food prep at a restaurant. It was a brief period of relative calm.
For weeks, immigration observers and practitioners have been watching with a mix of dismay and resignation as the axe descends slowly but surely on the neck of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency in charge of adjudicating immigration benefits.
A general hallmark of immigration policy is that it's complex. Even though many people believe that the undocumented can simply apply for residency after some period of time in the country, that's just not true. At least, not in most cases.
In May 1980, Félix Repilado Martínez left Cuba with tens of thousands of others in a mass migration via boat lift to what he thought would be a better life in the United States. Almost exactly 40 years later, on May 18, 2020, he died in the custody of the U.S.
In what has become an increasingly familiar pattern, the Trump administration set off a wave of confusion, anguish, and uncertainty on Monday as Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced changes to international student programs that would force those whose institutions adopt an online-only model to either transfer schools or leave the country.
Imagine for a moment that you're getting ready to file your taxes. It's an annual headache that you dread with every fiber of your being, but hey, at least it's a standard process. Everyone must contend with the arcane tax code as written by Congress, even if just to find every possible loophole.
Just eight miles from the White House, the Trump administration has quietly opened a new front in its war against immigrants. Inside a 26-story office tower next to a Target in Falls Church, Va., the Board of Immigration Appeals has broken with any pretense of impartiality and appears to be working in lockstep with the administration to close the door on immigrants' ability to remain in the country.
New York City has had very limited success in the voter turnout department for congressional elections in recent years. For the 2018 congressional primaries, the turnout did go up - to 11 percent, from a shockingly low 8 percent in 2016.
By mid-March, it was clear that the coronavirus thrived on physical proximity, particularly indoors, and that prisons were ticking time bombs of infection. Around that time, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced policies to temporarily cease transferring prisoners between different facilities, with the aim of stopping the spread of the virus.
Beatriz knows that the piece of paper she was given by her employer, certifying her as a critical worker, is not what makes her essential. "I know they say now we're essential, but we always have been, because we've always brought the food to people's tables.
Prince William County forged a close partnership with ICE since 2007. Fueled by its changing politics and local organizing, a local board opted to not renew its membership in the 287(g) program on Wednesday.
The president of El Salvador arrives at the Legislative Assembly for a special session on heavy-handed anti-crime measures he's proposing. Only he doesn't arrive alone: along with the standard entourage of presidential advisers and staff, he's accompanied by police officers and a retinue of soldiers in military fatigues carrying what appear to be U.S.-made M16 rifles in a clear display of force.
The agency is pursuing contracts with private detention providers to circumvent state and local efforts to curtail and regulate immigrant detention. After months of sustained pressure, immigrants' rights activists clinched a major victory in Williamson County, Texas, in June 2018.
Just like his original travel ban a week into his presidency and his Europe ban last month, Donald Trump's tweet Monday night saying he would "temporarily suspend immigration into the United States" left immigrants, advocates, reporters, attorneys and even government officials scrambling to figure out what exactly he meant.
As Charles and his family left a Tanzanian refugee camp in late January, bound for a new life in Pittsburgh, he allowed himself to feel hopeful. “When I arrived at the airport, I felt that hardness just ripped off,” he said, speaking in French. “But that stayed for only two weeks. Then the coronavirus came.”
Undocumented agricultural workers around the country currently find themselves in the position of Schrödinger's cat. In the eyes of the government, they are simultaneously illegitimate, an unwelcome threat to be contained and excised, and a vitally important workforce whose labor is among the few planks propping up a society disturbingly near total collapse.
On paper, Lorena and María have almost identical immigration cases. After all, they're a lesbian couple with very similar backstories, who experienced many of the same incidents and general harassment in their native Cuba, applied jointly for asylum at the southern border, were detained together, and applied to be released from detention with the same U.S.-based sponsor.
In late February, a group of Cameroonian women held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility, a women's center in Texas run by private prison company CoreCivic, staged a sit-in in front of the facility's clinic to protest their prolonged detention and lack of medical care.
On Sunday afternoon, a group of U.S. citizens and residents boarded a plane at the Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. They were finally bound for the United States after many had spent days trying to find any way out of the country, which had sealed its borders and forced the cancellation of many commercial flights in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Political leaders have been scrambling to address the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis by providing direct cash assistance to American families. Conservatives, who'd until now dismissed the idea of a Universal Basic Income as a dramatic expansion of the welfare state, have been forced to recognize that market solutions won't suffice as a global pandemic K.O.'s the national and world economy.
New York City has reached a first-of-its kind agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau to transfer data on the city's sheltered homeless population in a way that is intended to negate the need for census enumerators to perform their own separate count.
"If I'm going to get the coronavirus, I'm going to get it from an officer before I get it from an inmate."
On Friday afternoon in New York City, the day after Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, attorneys huddled with their clients in the hallway outside immigration court, standing close enough to whisper about sensitive case details out of earshot.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in San Antonio, Texas, have been systematically denying parole to large numbers of people who were detained after crossing into the United States hoping to apply for asylum. Instead of being allowed to join family or sponsors and work on their cases in the U.S., many migrants are being held without a chance of release while they wait for court dates.
On Monday, after years of speculation, court injunctions, and false starts, the Trump administration will finally put into effect its so-called public charge rule.
If you're packing up and leaving the place you've lived in your entire life to travel the two-thousand-odd miles and make an asylum claim at the U.S. border, one likely motivation is your belief that the authorities here-the people who have the state-sanctioned power to control your fate-are different in fundamental ways from those you're leaving behind.
Months after Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey abruptly delivered a legal opinion that could have dismantled key protections from deportation for nonviolent drug offenders in California, her office reversed course and dropped its effort last Tuesday, just after The Daily Beast asked about it.
The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) forwards information on certain immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement so that they can be apprehended, Documented has found. It's a practice the agency has long denied; spokesman Justin Mason said last year that "[a]ny assertion that DCJS is somehow willfully feeding information to ICE in order to assist with deportations is simply false.
New York Immigration attorneys are scrambling to adequately represent their detained clients after hearings were abruptly rescheduled or advanced by a factor of weeks without consultation, agreement or timely notice.
Ensuring an accurate count in the decennial U.S. Census is critical for every locality in the U.S. It's a crucial part of the process to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds for education, infrastructure, health, and other public programs, as well as determining the level of representation in Congress and the makeup of state legislatures.
Felipe De La Hoz The Brooklyn City Council Member has long been an advocate for immigrants rights. Politics Primary category in which blog post is published Brooklyn City Council Member Jumaane Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, has scored a decisive win in the special election for New York City Public Advocate.
As legislators in Albany gear up for a contentious fight over the possibility of establishing the nation's first single-payer health insurance system-through the New York Health Act-immigration advocates are pushing for a simpler change to New York's insurance system: the expansion of eligibility for the existing, state-run Essential Plan health insurance program to include undocumented residents.
Immigration courts are often chaotic. On Wednesday, the detained docket of New York City Immigration Judge Charles Conroy took things to the next level, as ICE personnel were unable to explain to an increasingly frustrated Conroy and a cadre of immigration lawyers where the detainees were.
U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, the Brooklyn Democrat recently assigned to the House Committee on Homeland Security, said she has discussed oversight of federal immigration enforcement with Committee Chairman and Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson. She said she expects to send letters of inquiry about policies and procedures surrounding enforcement processes to supervisory personnel at agencies like U.S.
In mid-March of 2017, a court officer at the Manhattan Criminal Court on Centre Street was approached by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent, Willie Outlaw. Outlaw, who was in plain clothes, asked the court officer to call him when a man named Stanley* appeared for his court date, then gave the officer his business card.
In a move long-awaited by immigration advocates, both chambers of the New York State Legislature passed the state DREAM act, which would grant tuition aid and other financial assistance to undocumented students. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign the bill into law.
Normally, the twelfth floor of the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan is bustling with activity, as immigrants, their families, attorneys, and personnel from Homeland Security and the Justice Department come and go to immigration courtrooms that see dozens of hearings a day.
The Department of Homeland Security may have violated its own policies and federal law in its effort to terminate Temporary Protected Status designation for Haitian nationals, according to a former Obama administration official. In court testimony Tuesday, Leon Rodriguez, who was director of the U.S.
The skinny 18-year-old Honduran sat off to the right side of the immigration courtroom, shackled at the hands and waist and alone except for the interpreter translating the proceedings to him. The court documentation indicated that the teenager had agreed to be deported after illegally crossing the southern U.S.
New York City policymakers are mulling a wide-ranging proposal to provide subsidized health care to people who cannot qualify for federal or state-managed health insurance - primarily undocumented immigrants. If it comes to fruition, it would be the country's largest municipal health care plan for the uninsurable, following those in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
According to statistics released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement today, immigration-related administrative arrests by Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers at the agency's New York City office increased about 35 percent to 3,476 in the fiscal year 2018 that ended Sept. 30 from 2,576 in fiscal year 2017.
It is Sunday, so the men have extra time to prepare a hearty stew in the kitchenette opposite to a small shrine to the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe. Outside, enormous warehouses line this sparse lot in Orange County, New York. Each holds thousands and thousands of onions, filling multiple cavernous spaces.
The GOP dam that has stopped up every major proposed immigration bill in the New York State Senate was broken during elections yesterday, cracked in part by frenzied last-minute efforts to mobilize politically dormant Arab-American and Latino immigrant communities in Brooklyn and Long Island.
It is becoming an axiom of political punditry that the Democratic Party takes its African-American voters for granted. Among progressive groups in New York, that maxim extends to the ballooning Latino population on Long Island, a potential political bludgeon that they believe has been ignored by the political establishment, but which could swing races if properly motivated.
A cell phone video shared with Documented appears to show uniformed New York State Court Officers helping plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents subdue a man and escort him out to a waiting car outside of the Queens County Criminal Court. The video was shared anonymously with the Immigrant Defense Project and provided to Documented.
On Sunday, Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing nationalist and member of Brazilian Congress to be the country's next president, part of a continuing wave of anti-establishmentarian populism that has bubbled up throughout the globe. Bolsonaro defeated Workers' Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad in the runoff race by a ten-point margin, with 55.1 percent of the vote to Haddad's 44.9 percent.
Unlike some of the more straightforward threats to New York City's immigrant populations, the so-called "public charge" rule is so nebulous and loaded with procedure that it's creating fear and confusion among those who may not even be affected.
After a tense, four-and-a-half hour meeting on Thursday evening, the Hudson County Freeholders approved a resolution to end the county's contract to hold ICE detainees at the Hudson County Correctional Facility by December 2020.
When a person is detained by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in New York City, odds are they will be processed downtown at 26 Federal Plaza and then swiftly shuttled eight miles west to the Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey.
The Trump administration said Saturday it may deny green cards to immigrants who legally use public benefits like housing vouchers and food assistance because it thinks such people are taking undue advantage of government benefits. As it happens, just making that threat appears to cause immigrants to drop public benefits they are legally entitled to.
For years, taxi drivers in New York City, many of them immigrants, have taken out loans against their taxi medallions, the treasured city documents that allow drivers to legally operate a taxicab. A taxi medallion was viewed as safe and secure collateral for those loans.
For New York State's immigrants - over one-fifth of the population - Gov. Andrew Cuomo's easy victory over progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon leaves two possible paths forward, one more likely than the other. The first is that the spirited primary race and the appetite for unabashed leftism in the activist base of the Democratic party have driven Cuomo leftward on immigration issues.
In June, Pablo Villavicencio, an undocumented immigrant who had applied for a green card and is married to a U.S. citizen, was detained while delivering pizza to the Fort Hamilton Army base in Brooklyn and held for 53 days.
Christopher Lee for Documented New legislation would prevent the city from contracting with "entities engaged in immigration enforcement." Politics Primary category in which blog post is published The New York City Council may soon explicitly prohibit the city from engaging in any contractual relationships with "entities engaged in immigration enforcement," according to the language of a new bill set to be introduced on Wednesday by Carlos Menchaca, chair of the Committee on Immigration.
A member of the New York City Council demanded answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday, over the agency's refusal to bring detained immigrants to court hearings. The Varick Street immigration court has had to resort to video hearings more often due to a recent shift by ICE to not allow immigrants to physically appear in court.
New York attorney general candidate Zephyr Teachout recently set off a firestorm in right-wing circles by asserting that she would initiate prosecutions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel if elected.
The New York City Council has approved measures to limit the spread of app-based for-hire vehicles and blunt some of the repercussions of a ballooning number of vehicles operated by companies like Uber and Lyft.
One New Jersey jail where Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds immigrants hit nearly triple its capacity for federal detainees recently, according to government data. Bergen County Jail held an average daily population (ADP) of 336 detainees in the first month of fiscal year 2018, from October to November 2017.
A judge ruled on Wednesday night that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been improperly keeping Pablo Villavicencio, a pizza deliveryman who was detained at a Brooklyn army base last month, in a form of custody even after he was ordered released.
The story that Carlos has to tell about being separated from his 12-year-old daughter at the Texas border is a common one for migrants fleeing Central America recently - and yet his experience differs in significant ways from those arrested under the Trump administration's now-defunct "zero tolerance" policy.
For Miguel Almonte, the problems started almost as soon as he walked through the door. He already had significant medical issues by the time he was detained at Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, N.J. in March of 2015.
COLONIE - On a Thursday morning at the Albany County Correctional Facility, men and women in bright orange jumpsuits came and went as guards spoke curtly into radios. The scene was unremarkable for a county jail, except for one major difference: most of the detainees brought out from the facility's secure area were migrants.
Children have been sexually assaulted, beaten and even turned to prostitution while under the custody of three New York child care agencies that are also taking in children separated from their parents by the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy, according to lawsuits reviewed by Documented.
The past year has seen an explosion in public awareness and subsequent fury for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This anger has spread to the realm of progressive political organizing and became a central plank for two upstart Democratic primary campaigns for Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Suraj Patel. Ocasio-Cortez is challenging incumbent Rep.
It was early in the morning when Miguel found his Brooklyn apartment surrounded by people clad in vests emblazoned: "POLICE." He had refused to open the door when they first knocked. One of the men had called his cellphone to say, in Spanish, that they had been sent by his probation officer.
Early in his term as governor, Eliot Spitzer introduced a plan to issue driver's licenses to all New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration status. Now a fairly commonplace practice, the proposal drew swift and decisive pushback from state Republicans and Spitzer's own Democratic party, including current rising star Kirsten Gillibrand.
The New York City comptroller is the city's chief fiscal officer, the person tasked with keeping the city's balance sheets and pension funds in good financial shape. In a city with a foreign-born population of around 40 percent, and in which immigrants make up an enormous amount of the small business owners and wage-earners, the question of immigration is inextricably tied to the financial well-being and viability.
Four years after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would provide prekindergarten for every 4-year-old in the city and then overcame skepticism to deliver his most popular policy to date, the mayor announced his intention last year to provide similar services for 3-year-olds citywide.
It's a bit of a sad axiom that tragedy often precedes creativity and artistic creation. War, famine, disease, they've all served as the backdrop for centuries' worth of innovation and reinvention in art, serving to simultaneously channel the desperation of the artist's circumstances and help shape and recontextualize those circumstances going forward.
The overheated media circus that is the annual State of Union address isn't one of those solemn traditions perverted by our current reality-show existence; rather, the whole affair has, for over a century now, been a largely cosmetic exercise in partisan bravado from both the president and the opposing party.
All politics is about backroom negotiations and horse-trading: There's always a carrot or a stick to force through legislation and keep the country chugging along. On Monday, immigration activists watched in dismay as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared to surrender his caucus' biggest stick in the fight over the fate of roughly 700,000 members of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in exchange for practically nothing.
When the New York City Council votes on its new Speaker tomorrow, to replace term-limited Melissa Mark-Viverito, it's now expected that Councilmember Corey Johnson will be the winner. Johnson, who represents a swath of western Manhattan from Hell's Kitchen, appears to have won the support of the powerful Queens and Bronx County Democratic organizations, as well as onetime Speaker race opponents Mark Levine, Ydanis Rodriguez, Donovan Richards, and Jimmy Van Bramer.
Chaos erupted at Brooklyn Criminal Court Tuesday morning after agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement snatched a defendant in the hallway, prompting a walkout by public defenders and accusations from court officers that Legal Aid attorneys had physically attacked them. Genaro Rojas Hernandez, 30, was in court to face charges of violating a restraining order.
For most New York City Council incumbents, election day was largely predictable and uneventful, with all but one councilmember running for re-election settling in for another four years. (Queens councilwoman Liz Crowley was narrowly defeated by challenger Bob Holden.)
Ishmael Garcia-Velasquez wore a suit and tie to Brooklyn Criminal Court on Tuesday morning. The 35-year-old father has made routine appearances over the past seven months on petit larceny and misdemeanor assault charges, according to his lawyer. But this time, after yet another adjournment, plainclothes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement handcuffed Garcia-Velasquez outside of the courtroom.
Since the November 7 general election, all eyes are shifting in one direction: the New York City Council, whose members new and old must pick their next Speaker as term-limited Melissa Mark-Viverito departs. There's a whole lot of intrigue in the wrangling for the seat, as party bosses play coy and candidates dangle committee chairmanships for their colleagues.
New York has long suffered from abysmal voter turnout, and this election cycle so far hasn't provided much cause for optimism. Hopes of a post-Trump voter engagement bump in the September primaries were dashed as of registered Democrats turned out for the only contested mayoral primary, the lowest percentage since 2009.
After weeks of fraught negotiations, the fate of a potential legislative replacement for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program still hasn't been resolved, leaving the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Americans previously shielded by the program in a state of legal limbo as its March 5 termination date approaches.
After the coarse spectacle that was last week's mayoral debates, the race for Gracie Mansion is dominating much of the political oxygen in the room, at least for now. Following the November 7 general election, however, all eyes will immediately shift in one direction: the New York City Council, whose members new and old must pick their next Speaker as term-limited Melissa Mark-Viverito departs.
The mayoral general election debate that took place Tuesday night was never going to be very much about substance, and most everyone knew it. This was true of the crowds milling around the venue, Symphony Space, before the 7 p.m. start time, where the chanting and yelling mostly steered clear of any substantive policy points.
As concerns mount over a possible whirlwind of federal budget cuts to an array of state programs and agencies - from housing to education to infrastructure - one obscure program in particular poses a major threat to healthcare for New York City's poorer, uninsured residents, and especially its Latino population.
Two weeks after President Donald Trump announced he was rescinding the protections offered to young undocumented immigrants by his predecessor Barack Obama, the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program remains murky.
At the 11 a.m. church service at Harlem's Bethany Baptist Church on September 10, the wooden pews were largely filled with well-dressed older New Yorkers. Most were first- or second-generation immigrants from the English-speaking islands and archipelagos of the Caribbean, which at that moment had already been battered by Hurricane Irma and were bracing for the possibility of more storms as well.
Carlina Rivera (photo: Felipe De La Hoz) As the sun rose over the brick facades of the East Village, Carlina Rivera stood on the corner of 1st avenue and 10th street with a handful of flyers. It was 6:30 a.m.
As New York City voters headed to the polls this week, they may have left wondering why they ultimately have so few choices. The reasons are manifold; as my Voice colleague Ross Barkan has pointed out in his reporting, many are de facto realities of a political system where institutional inertia is king.
Nicole Malliotakis, left, with John Catsimatidis, center (photo: @NMalliotakis) Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis does not need to worry about defeating a primary opponent, and running unopposed is cheap.
JC Polanco on BronxNet With candidates vying for votes ahead of New York City's September primary and November general elections, many in and around campaigns know that the state's antiquated election laws will, in part, ensure that a small percentage of potential voters will cast ballots among limited choices.
De Blasio & Albanese on NY1 Mayor Bill de Blasio, a first-term Democrat pursuing reelection this fall, faced off against Sal Albanese on Wednesday at the first of two primary debates ahead of the September 12 vote.
NYCHA and the city (photo: @ZodetN) Since the January inauguration of Donald Trump as president, department heads and administrators throughout New York City government have been bracing for negative reverberations, with many expecting slashed federal spending and harmful policy rollbacks. At least one city agency sees a potential silver lining.
Mayor de Blasio at his reelection headquarters (@BilldeBlasio) As New York City's campaign season hurtles toward the September 12 primaries and November 7 general election, bringing new flurries of fundraising and spending from mayoral candidates, attention has largely been focused on the 'raising,' with a few recent donations getting headlines.
Nicole Malliotakis (photo: @NMalliotakis) Daniel Loeb, the investor, political donor, and charter school network leader who has found himself embroiled in controversy after racially charged remarks about State Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, donated the maximum allowable contribution of $4,950 to the campaign of presumptive Republican mayoral nominee Nicole Malliotakis.
Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez (photo William Alatriste/New York City Council) At a contentious hours-long hearing held on Tuesday by the the City Council's Committee on Transportation, Council members grilled representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) on the problems facing the city's transit infrastructure and the challenges of finding both short- and long-term funding streams to adequately maintain and upgrade the city's subway system.
GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis (photo: @NMalliotakis) After Michel Faulkner shifted his mayoral campaign to one for comptroller and real estate executive Paul Massey suspended his altogether, State Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis' campaign began referring to her as "the presumptive Republican nomee in the race for Mayor."
A Michael Tolkin tradmarked brand Michael Tolkin, a 32-year-old entrepreneur and mayoral candidate who reported giving his own campaign a $5 million in-kind contribution - goods and services instead of cash - has provided an estimated breakdown of the highly unusual contribution's components.
Comptroller (photo via @NYCComptroller) New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is modifying the website showing city spending to include more information on sub-vendors, providing an added layer of transparency to the tool that helps shed light on hundreds of billions of dollars in city contracting.
Cuomo with Hillary Clinton, Gail Mellow, far right, & others (photo: Governor's Office) Dr. Gail O. Mellow, the president of LaGuardia Community College, contacted fellow City University of New York (CUNY) presidents to gather statements in support of the proposed Excelsior Scholarship program on behalf of Governor Andrew Cuomo, before the proposal was passed and signed into law earlier this year.
Bo Dietl at his office (photo: Ben Max) In his 50th floor corner office in Midtown, the characteristically brash private security CEO Bo Dietl made the case Monday morning for his outsider mayoral candidacy. Appearing on the Max & Murphy podcast, Dietl explained his brand, his political evolution from Republican to Democrat, and his independent candidacy for the city's top job.
Speaker Mark-Viverito (center) and Council Member Johnson (r) (photo: William Alatriste/New York City Council) A number of City Council Members who are jockeying to replace Melissa Mark-Viverito as the next Speaker of the City Council seem to be stepping up efforts to curry favor with their colleagues and other elected officials through strategic campaign donations.
Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis (photo: Felipe De La Hoz/Gotham Gazette) As Mayor Bill de Blasio spent his third day in Queens for his week-long City Hall in Your Borough initiative, presumptive Republican mayoral nominee Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis showed up at his Manhattan workplace to reprimand the mayor for a lack of transparency for his numerous trips out of the city.
Michael Tolkin (center) at a Reform Party forum (photo: Tolkinformayor.com) Michael Tolkin, a 32-year-old tech entrepreneur who is among over a dozen long-shot candidates running to unseat New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, appears to have outspent every other contender in the race, including the mayor, with a $5 million in-kind contribution to his own campaign.
Governor Cuomo at Monday's healthcare rally (photo: Governor's Office) At a packed auditorium at Mount Sinai Hospital Monday afternoon, four of the state's top elected Democrats united in a show of force to rally against a common enemy: the Republican-led U.S. Senate's bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.
Mayor de Blasio & First Lady McCray (photo: Edwin J Torres/Mayor's Office) In his three-and-a-half years as mayor of the nation's largest city, Bill de Blasio has focused his administration on bridging gaps between the haves and the have-nots, expanding opportunity for those left behind during the city's recent boom years.
Nicole Malliotakis, middle (photo via @NMalliotakis) State Assembly member and mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis discussed her campaign Friday with Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max and City Limits executive editor Jarrett Murphy for their Max & Murphy podcast.
(photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office) A much talked-about provision of Mayor Bill de Blasio's 13th-hour deal to have his control over city schools extended was the agreement that 22 revoked or surrendered charter school charters could be reissued without counting towards the predetermined state cap on the number of charter schools.
New Yorkers cast their votes for President (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office) New York has joined the ranks of states refusing to comply with a request for voter information sent yesterday by Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State and vice chair of the newly-created federal Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
(photo: The Governor's Office) As the dust settles on the scheduled legislative session in Albany and subsequent "extraordinary session" called by Governor Andrew Cuomo, much of the focus has been on the extension of mayoral control of city schools, finally passed Thursday after serious brinkmanship.
Council Member Kallos (photo: City Council) As the September 12 primary elections approach and campaigns kick into high gear, a vast majority of candidates for the city's elected offices will have their coffers bolstered by the Campaign Finance Board's (CFB) public matching funds program, which matches eligible donations at a 6-to-1 ratio.
The Mayor & his jobs plan (photo: Felipe De La Hoz) Holding up a glossy, 114-page booklet emblazoned with "New York Works" in bold yellow lettering - the same words hanging from the wall behind him - Mayor Bill de Blasio promised on Thursday to make New York City the "capital of cyber security."
(photo: The Governor's Office) Standing near a City Hall subway stop, Staten Island Assembly member and GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis railed against Mayor Bill de Blasio's handling of the city's transit system and its state-controlled operator, the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
(photo: Kevin Coughlin/Governor's Office) Public university administrators and college presidents enthusiastically supporting a governor's proposal to fund tuition for potential students is a situation that would normally invite little scrutiny.
Most mornings, Bronx resident Rosalind Brown wakes up four times. Her multiple alarms ring at intervals, so she can check on her 13-year-old son, Jalen, after waking him up to get ready for school. The bus arrives at 6:05 a.m, to get him to school by 7:45.
One Vote Better NY lobbyist (photo: @NYCVotes) Two charter buses idling in downtown Manhattan in the early hours of the morning on a weekday would usually be full of mismatched tourists from far-flung states and countries, waiting to gape at the Wall Street bull and his recently-placed female antagonist.
The panel (photo: Felipe De La Hoz/Gotham Gazette) A forum held Thursday night at the New York City Bar Association featured advocates and officials at the city and federal levels to discuss the insidious problem of homelessness among military veterans. The city's newly created Department of Veterans Services estimates that New York City is home to over 210,000 veterans.
Council Members Vanessa Gibson and Robert Cornegy (photo: William Alatriste) At a preliminary budget hearing before the City Council committee on Public Safety Thursday morning, the district attorneys of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island and representatives for the district attorneys of Brooklyn and Queens and the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor laid out the case for their budget priorities.
(photos: @FDNY) Of the city's various uniformed workers, some dominate media attention and public awareness. Along with the historical presence and mythology of firefighters and police officers, corrections officers have been in the news recently, mostly for the wrong reasons, while New Yorkers rely on sanitation workers for a basic essential of city life.
Marjorie Velazquez (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette) In a February special election, Harlemites voted then-state Senator Bill Perkins to fill a City Council seat vacated by Inez Dickens, who had been previously elected to the state Assembly. Heading toward the regularly-scheduled September primary elections and November general, there are now seven "open" City Council seats in the 51-seat body.
The media at an NYPD press conference (photo: @NYPDNews) Members of the news media wanting to get a new NYPD press badge will have to make do without until further notice.
Mayor de Blasio (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Office) A report released by the city Independent Budget Office has raised questions about the potential effects of the so-called "mansion tax," a proposed part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's affordable housing strategy that would levy a 2.5 percent surcharge on the sale price over a threshold of $2 million for residential properties.
Kurt Vincent's 'The Lost Arcade' documents Chinatown Fair, a spiritual home to gamers.
Michael Phelps, the Olympic Refugee team and other athletes are recounting their Rio experiences in real time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
A newly discovered novel from late writer Michael Crichton is on the way. "Dragon Teeth" is set in the late 19th century American West. It focuses on the real-life rivalry between paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh - during a time known as the "Bone Wars" - as seen through the story of fictional character William [...]
As noon approached on Thursday, policemen and men in dark suits with earpieces stood in front of the Scholastic headquarters on Broadway in New York City. They weren't there to protect a dignitary, politician or celebrity, though one celebrity's name certainly was on everyone's lips: wizard and literary character Harry Potter.
Mike Birbiglia, whose second directorial effort, "Don't Think Twice," will be released on Friday, has been writing stand-up comedy since he was 16. After the success of his debut film, "Sleepwalk with Me," a semi-autobiographical depiction of a comic's struggles with a sleepwalking disorder - which Birbiglia himself actually suffered from - he continued doing stand-up.
A retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art showcases Ira Sachs's seven feature films, including "Little Men," due out in August, along with several shorts.
In the arsenal of tools to promote gender equality, one not often mentioned are emoji, the colorful little descendants to the emoticon, inserted into text to convey thoughts or emotions efficiently in the brave new world of instant messaging. Yesterday, the Unicode Consortium approved emoji for 11 new professions, such as welder and scientist, that [...]
Prolific writer and eccentric educator Jesse Ball is not known for straightforward storytelling. His latest novel, "How to Set a Fire and Why," is structured as a series of predictions, journal entries and pamphlets compiled by the book's precocious teenage narrator, Lucia. So it's not necessarily a surprise that at a reading this past Wednesday night, [...]
Despite the abundance of design commentary circulating the web, Adobe mobile product design chief Khoi Vinh doesn't believe that the design community has reached the "level of maturity" in its public discussion that fields like architecture and film enjoy.
The Hunting Ground was released in February of this year it sent tremors through much of the country. Described by the New York Times as a "documentary shocker," the movie examines sexual assault and the often insufficient institutional response to it on college campuses across the United States.
As confused commuters hurried past, some stopping to snap a few cell phone pictures before rushing to catch the incoming G train, Matthew Christian stood among subway musicians wearing a shirt that read "Music is legal." Mr. Christian is one of the co-founders of Busk New York, an organization that advocates for subway buskers, or street performers.
Asked about her experiences learning about LGBT issues at a forum in downtown Manhattan, Chelsea Clinton struck a deeply personal note. "I think the first time I heard the word 'gay' was when one of my mom's law partners killed himself because he couldn't figure out how to come out to his family," Ms. Clinton said, adding that she was 7 years old at the time.
There have been attempts to force the closure of the Rikers Island jail for years, but Glenn Martin thinks that the failed efforts so far have been missing a key ingredient: "the community's voice."
That is New York University's total estimated cost for "direct expenses," which are tuition, mandatory fees and room and board. Factor in New York City's cost of living, 68.8% higher than the national average as calculated by personal finance company Smartasset, and it's easy to see why many students are struggling with financials, or have even dropped out .
In the face of what they call Congressional inaction, a coalition of New York City activists, aid groups and elected officials are pushing for reform on the rights of gay veterans. For many of the nation's discharged LGBT service members, activating benefits normally earned through service isn't an option.
The running on how to make sure that Housing Development Fund Corporation co-ops remain successful low-income home-ownership vehicles may soon get a boost from something it's been conspicuously missing: cold, hard data. "It's a murky world right now," Manhattan Councilman Mark Levine told the Observer.
On Monday night, Rev. Al Sharpton held a town hall with Correction Officers' Benevolent Association president Norman Seabrook and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to discuss the future of the Rikers Island jail-and to express concern about recent proposals to close the jail complex.
On Friday, members of the State Assembly's Housing Committee gathered at a conference room in Harlem to hear expansive, sometimes contradictory testimony on co-operative housing in New York.
Uber, the popular ride-hailing app, implemented a rate cut today for its Uber X and Uber XL services. Minimum fares will drop from $8 to $7, per-mile rates will go from $2.15 to $1.75 and per-minute rates will drop to 35 cents from 40. The changes were first reported by the New York Post.
Starbucks Coffee has announced a partnership with Spotify that would give 10 million My Starbucks Rewards members at any of 7,500 Starbucks company-operated stores in the U.S. the ability to identify music playing in the store, save and listen to Starbucks-curated songs through the Starbucks Mobile App.
Within 15 minutes of arriving at P.S. 96 in the Bronx on a recent November morning, City Councilman Ritchie Torres asked his deputy chief of staff Juan Antigua to contact every public school in his district and find out if they had a music teacher.
Vic's Pizza on the Lower East Side has been selling New York's staple food for 45 years. On Saturday, the restaurant will bake its last pie before closing its doors for good. Victor Mendez, 48, Vic's owner, said the pizzareia's fate was inevitable after his neighbors closed shop recently.
Two percent of the city's buildings use 45% of the city's energy, according to a new report by Climate Works For All. The organization, part of The Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN) and focused on combating climate change while creating jobs, used data that is publicly available through the city's energy consumption reporting requirements, enacted as part of the Greener, Greater Buildings (GGBP) laws.
Vinicius Ribeiro spends a lot of his time rifling through trash bins, peering under garbage bags and lugging home other people's refuse. He's not looking for food or plastic bottles to sell; he's hunting raw materials to use for his art. "At the beginning, people used to look at me and say: 'He's a garbage collector.'
Posted on the doors of Market Diner is a letter from a family of longtime regulars. It includes warm memories and features a picture of two children, standing in front of distinctive Art Deco building and beaming at the camera. But the tone of the letter is bittersweet.
Around 150 activists gathered in Brooklyn's Cadman Plaza on Thursday to call for police reform as part of the annual National Day of Protest. Activists for Palestinian justice, transgender rights and police reform shared stories, sang, read poems and yelled at the assembled police presence.
Dozens of supporters flooded Battery Park Tuesday in support of an Obama-sponsored program that would protect undocumented immigrants from deportation and temporarily grant them the ability to work. Against a backdrop of signs reading "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied," about 50 people urged the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to reverse the lower court's decision, filed against Texas and 25 other states, and do so quickly.
More than 100 people gathered outside City Hall Tuesday, frustrated by the city's cap on special food and vending permits. While the city has issued more than 17,600 food vendor licenses, only vendors with one of 4,100 special permits can have a food cart on the street.
At 174 years and counting, New York University has its fair share of fascinating details and hidden gems. (Credit: Yeong-Ung Yang) landmarks Shhhh... Your secret is safe with us. Submit a secret and it may get published in amNewYork and on amny.com!
The meeting ended just as most have over the past year: Alicia Boyd was shouting at Community Board 9 District Manager Pearl Miles. And Miles was shouting back. "You're corrupt, Pearl!" yelled Boyd, to which Miles replied: "I don't care!" Asked to clarify, Miles quickly mumbled that she meant she didn't care what Boyd thought.
Tran Le Xuan, better known as "Madame Nhu," was a woman who defied simple categorization. The wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of unmarried South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, she was the de facto first lady of the country.
The 1944 liberation of occupied France during World War II endures in our collective memory as a clash of mighty armies -- a visual rhetoric that distills the horrors of the occupation, the struggle for freedom and the jubilation of the liberation itself.