It's part of the lore of New York City: a place where immigrants from around the world come to try their luck.
Their influence is everywhere: from a slice of pizza to the immigrant-owned bodegas blasting bachata music.
But in recent months, as the national sentiment continues to be divided on immigation, the mood in New York has also shifted.
The city's embattled mayor, Eric Adams, has agreed to collaborate with the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants living in the country without legal status, marking a significant change for a city that has historically welcomed families from around the world. Since the 1980's, New York has been a sanctuary city. That means it limits police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Adams, who had been facing corruption charges, has lately been warming up to the president: there was a dinner at Mar-a-Lago back in January, right before Trump's inauguration. Last week, the Department of Justice demanded that the case against Adams be dropped, stating that it was undermining the mayor's ability to help enact Trump's large-scale deportation agenda. A few days later, the mayor was appearing on Fox News alongside border czar Tom Homan, promising to work with the Trump administration on illegal immigration. It begs the question: for all its mythology, is New York City still a welcoming place for immigrants?
It depends on who you ask.
On a cold morning in Upper Manhattan, in the back of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Bishop Matthew Hyde reflects on his life in the city for the last thirty years. He says he's seen so much change in just a few short months. "The fear infects everything. People are worried about being out in public, doing even basic things like go to the supermarket."
But he also says his parishioners are jumping into action more than ever: church volunteers are buying groceries for immigrant families scared of going out and being caught in an immigration raid. Ordinary people have been stepping up, he says, "because people who inhabit official positions aren't."
For some New Yorkers, however, Adams' apparent shift on immigration is welcome news.
Over at Filoncino Cafe, an Italian sandwich spot that is a staple of Staten Island, Peter Giunta, chairman of the New York State Young Republicans says, "he's willing to work with the administration on delivering on these policies that arguably all Americans gave President Trump a mandate to enact." In the last three years, New York City has taken in over 200,000 migrants. Giunta says, it's about time the city starts getting rid of people without legal status, and a criminal record.
I point out that we're sitting here eating a Staten Island classic: Prosciutto and capicola sandwiches, brought here by Italian immigrants. Isn't this an example of how New York's core identity has been shaped by immigrants?
"I would disagree with that," says Giunta. "I think New York's core identity is the New Yorker. Not some person that came over from Guatemala or somewhere else," he says. The immigrants that came in the 18th and 19th centuries, he argues, were different. "Like my great-grandparents. Italian, obviously. Very different set of values than, I would argue, than some of the migrants that have come over today have."
Other people interviewed by NPR expressed similar views, even recent immigrants, some of whom feel today's newcomer is different from their own family members when they arrived in the U.S.
Carlos Collado, originally from the Dominican Republic, is now a U.S. citizen living in the Bronx. The lifelong Democrat said he voted for Trump because he was alarmed about all the newer migrants coming into the city. He says a lot of his neighbors feel the same but are scared of saying so in public. He owns a supermarket here in the Bronx and says a nearby migrant shelter caused problems. He says incidents of shoplifting went up. "As a small business owner, I felt Trump prioritized establishing order and the rule of law."
But he's also wary about Mayor Adams' growing ties with the Trump administration. He worries it will go too far. "I want immigration control. But I don't want to see them separating families that are simply here looking for a better future, who are working and have not committed any crimes," Collado says.
In recent days Mayor Adams has said he wants to crack down on "violent migrant gangs."
In a statement released on February 13, he said he wanted ICE agents back on Rikers Island to work with "the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs."
It's a major shift. A 2014 law forbids the Department of Correction from collaborating with ICE unless there has been a serious or violent crime.
The mayor said he was also looking into embedding NYPD detectives on federal tax forces, "focusing on these violent gangs and criminal activity" to keep New Yorker's safe. "
But the mayor has up until recently boasted that violent crime is down in the city.
And despite his promise to focus on crime, all immigrants without legal status that NPR spoke to say they are terrified. In Queens, the fear of deportation is widespread
It's a tangible feeling over on Roosevelt Avenue located underneath the 7 train. This area is known for its bustling immigrant street vendors, but lately there's been Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer sightings on a near daily basis, and it's gotten quieter. I ask a vendor who sells Colombian buñuelos (warm dough pastries), if he's ever seen people so scared.
"No," he says. "I've really never seen anything like this." He asked that we refer to him by his first initial only: T, because in his 20-plus years living in New York, he's never been so afraid of getting caught up in a raid.
Out here eating buñuelos with us is Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez. She's with the Street Vendors Project, a group that advocates for vendors, almost all of whom are immigrants. She says everyday immigrants who are just trying to feed their families are being criminalized: the NYPD has been giving more street vendors criminal tickets for violating strict vending laws. "Once the doors open a crack," she says, "it allows it to be kicked open completely."
Kaufman-Gutierrez is angry. "I think Mayor Adams does not know his own city or does not care to know his own city. The people who pay taxes in his city. The people who go out and shop every morning. The people who are up at 4 a.m. driving deliveries. Those are the people who run this city and are being served up on a silver platter for President Trump."
Immigration, she says, is as New York as a slice of thin crust New York pizza.
Or a warm buñuelo on a cold winter night in Queens.
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