Republican supporters briefly chat exterior the Staten Island Republican Celebration headquarters within the New Dorp neighborhood of Staten Island in New York Metropolis on Tuesday.
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NEW YORK — It was an unusually heat evening for November in New York Metropolis.
In Staten Island, a conservative stronghold of the town, immigration was entrance and middle on voters’ minds in Tuesday’s election.
For months, Donald Trump and his marketing campaign have been promising mass deportations. In a metropolis that has acquired some 200,000 new migrants within the final two years, that promise has resonated amongst some.
“He’s gonna close that border again,” stated Jeanmarie Sigismondi, a schoolteacher. “He’s gonna get the criminals out. You come here? Learn how to speak English. Come here legally. We have no problem with immigrants. Come. Here. Legally.”
Jeanmarie Sigismondi, 66, a volunteer for Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and a Trump marketing campaign volunteer in Bucks County, Pa., stands for a portrait exterior of the Staten Island Republican Celebration headquarters on Tuesday.
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A Republican supporter holds an indication backing presidential candidate Donald Trump for drivers passing by the Staten Island Republican Celebration headquarters.
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These factors of view had been to be anticipated on this deeply Republican a part of city. Out in Jackson Heights, Queens, the image was extra sophisticated.
NPR first stopped by a Bangladeshi a part of the neighborhood, the place the election outcomes had been being broadcast on a large out of doors display screen. Amen Kahn was watching the printed and sipping some tea.
Khan is within the nation legally, and he can’t vote. However he stated that if he may have, it could have been for Donald Trump.
New York Metropolis is a Democratic stronghold, and Jackson Heights, the neighborhood wherein we met Khan, is synonymous with its numerous immigrant communities. The mass deportations promised by the Trump marketing campaign would goal areas like these. And but, on election evening, this neighborhood was deeply divided on its assist of former President Donald Trump.
Amen Kahn, 56, a 12-year resident of the Jackson Heights neighborhood, stands for a portrait in Variety Plaza on Tuesday.
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Residents of the Jackson Heights neighborhood anxiously look on for the night’s election outcomes throughout an election evening watch social gathering in Variety Plaza.
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“I’m also [an] immigrant,” Khan stated. “But I came in a legal way. Those people who don’t have any papers, and [are] crossing the border, we need to take them out from this country.”
Some on this crowd disagreed with him.
Standing on the doorway to his clothes retailer, Mithu Ahmed invited us right into a world of beautiful materials and jewellery. He wouldn’t say who he voted for, as a result of he stated this neighborhood is approach too divided on the difficulty.
However he did say he misplaced loads of enterprise through the pandemic. It was immigrants who introduced it again. “Who comes to our store? The immigrants.” With out them, he stated, the economic system would undergo.
Ripa Ahmed, 50, a neighborhood enterprise proprietor in Jackson Heights, shows her voter sticker as she tends to purchasers inside her retailer.
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Mithu Ahmed, 60, a neighborhood enterprise proprietor in Jackson Heights, stands for a portrait inside his retailer in Variety Plaza.
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“Elon Musk,” he jokes, “is not buying my stuff.”
A couple of blocks up, on the Latin music bar Terraza 7, the proprietor, Freddy Castiblanco, watched the election on a giant display screen, nervously. He stated loads of the Latino immigrants who’ve been right here for many years assist Trump.
Some recalled feeling afraid through the Obama presidency, who they known as “the Deporter-in-Chief.” They stated they really feel Democratic immigration coverage has grow to be laborious to differentiate from Republican. (On this marketing campaign cycle, Democrats moved additional proper of their immigration rhetoric.)
Freddy Castiblanco, 53, sits for a portrait at his music membership, Terraza 7.
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Jackson Heights residents anxiously look on for the night’s election outcomes throughout an election evening watch social gathering at Terraza 7.
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Others inform Castiblanco “that they are outraged,” he stated. “They’ve been waiting for years, decades, for a path to legalization. Why should these newer migrants get any assistance?”
Standing exterior, a lady named Prita Rozario regarded unhappy and drained. “I’m very disgusted and very sad, and heartbroken. These people are immigrants themselves.”
Rozario, initially from Bangladesh, voted Tuesday as a U.S. citizen.
Prita Rozario, 30, a Hells Kitchen resident that’s volunteering to assist inform Jackson Heights voters of proposals on their poll, stands for a portrait.
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Graffiti in assist of Donald Trump greets Jackson Heights residents on the nook of thirty seventh Avenue and 83rd Road in Queens.
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As she tells us that she forged her poll for Kamala Harris, a lady walks by and yells at Rozario in Spanish, “Stupid communist!” earlier than disappearing into the darkish streets of this very deeply divided neighborhood.
