On a Monday night in January, the South Brooklyn shelter was packed with dozens of volunteers, translators and immigrants. Migrants have raised a series of pressing questions — What will the incoming Trump administration mean for their pending asylum cases? How do you fight an eviction order? And, in the worst-case scenario, how do you prepare for a family separation?
They worry that when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday, he will fulfill his campaign promise and order sweeping deportations across the country. The 210,000 undocumented people who have arrived in New York City since 2022 also face Mayor Eric Adams closing the 1,800-person Floyd Bennett Field shelter situation, and his threat to rescind the city’s shelter policy over the objections of the City Council. executive order. Incoming Trump administration officials met with Adams to discuss deporting criminal immigrants.
South Brooklyn Shelter Director Emily Schechtman said the organization is doing everything it can to prepare for the uncertainty ahead. In recent weeks, 150 new volunteers have signed up, with more expected to sign up after the inauguration. “We anticipate we will be doing more deportation defense, ICE surveillance and anti-family separation work,” she said.
The South Brooklyn shelter is one of dozens of groups across the country that operate as individual communities, teaching immigrants to "represent themselves" in the legal system with the support of volunteers. Since its founding in 2022, the nonprofit has worked with more than 5,000 immigrants and has more than 100 trained and active volunteers. Last year alone, they helped 715 immigrants file change-of-address forms before they missed court dates and risked deportation.
Trump has promised to launch "the largest deportation program in American history" once he takes office, sending a bill to Congress to ban sanctuary cities and requesting funds to hire and retain 10,000 new border agents. He also said he would limit federally funded benefits to U.S. citizens and reinstate and expand a travel ban on Muslim-majority countries. Trump's claim in a December interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he had "no choice" but to expel millions of people and that "they cost us a lot" was met with criticism from economists. question.
To prepare for the work ahead, a South Brooklyn shelter is raising money for a full-time attorney and developing a new program to help immigrants file motions to reopen their asylum cases, which can fight deportation orders. This month it will also expand into a new space, where it will train a new group of French- and Arabic-speaking volunteers to accommodate the growing number of immigrants from African countries.
"Our commitment to the community is that we will remain knowledgeable and prepared for any policy changes that are coming," she said.
Emeriz, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of being deported, said she left Venezuela after being targeted by the military while in high school for protesting against authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.
The 26-year-old had little time to apply for asylum when she attended the South Brooklyn shelter's walk-in immigration program at Good Shepherd Church in Bay Ridge. Asylum applications need to be filed within one year of the applicant’s date of arrival in the United States. With the help of volunteers, she filled out asylum and work permit forms in a timely manner.
“I was scared when I first arrived, but about a month later I received my work permit,” Emelis said.
The South Brooklyn shelter was established after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott decided to bus more than 27,300 migrants to New York due to border security concerns. More than 8 million migrants have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since 2020 due to political repression, gang violence, poverty and natural disasters, with many settling in migrant centers in major cities where safety nets have struggled to expand quickly. Through 2024, both border crossings and the number of new immigrants arriving in New York City and other major metropolitan centers have declined.
In Brooklyn, Pastor Juan Carlos Ruiz of the Church of the Good Shepherd and residents welcomed their new neighbors in weekly door-to-door events that provided immigration information, hot meals and clothing. They quickly realized that immigrants also needed to know their rights.
At the time, New York City's legal clinics were overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants seeking free legal representation. The same situation exists in other cities. The Immigrant Solidarity Network in Washington, D.C., and Mountain Dreamers in Frisco, Colorado, are just two of the many organizations that formed amid a lack of local government and nonprofit services to help immigrants fill out asylum and employment authorization applications.
In New York, the city's official asylum center has strict restrictions on who can schedule an asylum application appointment: Migrants must be within the city's asylum system, qualify for work authorization, and have not been in the country longer than 11 months. At the same time, many immigrants appear in immigration court unprepared and often without legal representation. Schechtman said nearly 44 percent of immigrants in New York state are dealing with their cases alone, and many do not speak English, know their rights or have any legal training.
“In the absence of attorney capacity, we need a strong self-representation community to fill the judicial void,” Schechtman said.
Maria Meneses, 45, an asylum recipient herself who started volunteering at a South Brooklyn shelter last summer, shares advice that has benefited her.
She sat with asylum seekers and told them she understood the trauma they were enduring. Menezes asked them to provide any evidence of violence or abuse to make their case stronger. "I tell them it may be embarrassing, but it's important to show what happened to you," she said.
Menezes stressed that asylum seekers must name the specific gangs that threaten them and the towns in which they operate. "Many of these gangs are serious economic and political operations embedded in the government because of high levels of corruption," she said. “You can make the case that resisting them will lead to government persecution.”
Menezes said that while her personal experience makes her an effective volunteer, it can also take a toll on her. "These families put all their dreams into the asylum process," she said. "They are forced to tell the story of the most horrific things that happened to them and why they left everything behind."
But seeing the number of volunteers at the South Brooklyn shelter more than double in the past three months gives her hope. “It’s so inspiring to see how people in New York City are supporting their communities,” she said.
Currently, Amélise is building her life in New York. After she obtained her work permit in 2023, she found work as a domestic helper in a temporary agency. After her night shift ends, she gets to spend time with her son and brother. "I just want my son to have a better future here," she said.