ICE is now threatening to deport any international student who will have only online classes next semester. The news came on July 6, as the coronavirus numbers in the states continued to soar. Many international students who hold  F-1 and M-1 visas will not be able to return to their campuses. The measure would entail high costs for these students who already contribute nearly $41 billion to the U.S. economy. 

“I think it’s cruel. I can’t even see a benefit to it. We contribute a lot to the economy. I worked really hard to be here, and to have that taken away overnight is absolutely cruel,” said Julia Sipowicz, an international student studying film at NYU Tisch. 

Since the onset of the pandemic students have realized how frail their status is in the country. At NYU, the largest private university in the country, with 19,600 international students, the pandemic has led to one crisis after another. They faced eviction from their dormitories in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Now, they may face eviction from the country. 

NYU President Andy Hamilton assured students in an email that “ NYU’s leadership has been looking ahead and working on plans for a return to in-person, on-campus activity to be accompanied by an effective set of health and safety protocols.” 

Sipowicz is still uneasy despite Hamilton’s email. Her academic advisor assured her she was fine, because her program is hybrid. But she doesn’t trust the system.

 “I was one of the students who got kicked out of the dorms,” she said. “I’m very weary of what could happen in the future given how (NYU) didn’t think of the consequences. I need to look out for myself and not expect them to,” she said. 

Students who are enrolled in classes that are confirmed to be in person or hybrid are not entirely safe. If there is a resurgence later in the year, and their programs switch to online courses, they could be required to leave the U.S.

Zhuoru Deng, a second-year graduate international student at NYU Steinhardt, doesn’t know if she should transfer to the Shanghai campus. 

“There are risky choices on both sides. What if I stay in the U.S. and the course goes online in October/November,” she asked. “My advisor told me, ‘If you go back to China, you have to be prepared for the possibility of not being able to come back to the U.S.’”

Getting a ticket to Shanghai will not be easy. Flights are limited and costs can be as high as $10,000. Also, tickets need to be booked through an agent. Regular booking will not be available until November. 

“Some agents are frauds, and some of my friends have already lost money booking through them,” Deng said. 

Harvard and the Michigan Institute of Technology have sued the Trump administration in response to ICE’s announcement. Sipocwicz wishes NYU would do more, like reaching out directly to the government or immigration lawyers to find out how to help students. On July 7 Hamilton announced that NYU intends to file an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit.

But Sipocwicz wants the university to do more.

“NYU should do more to advocate for us,” she said. “I haven’t seen NYU do that. A statement from the president doesn’t make a difference.”

The post ICE takes aim at international students appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

“Defunding the police is kind of one of those generic terms that means different things for different people,” said Dennis Kenney a criminal justice professor at John Jay College and a former Florida police officer. “Shutting down the NYPD would be a bit of a disaster. They’re talking about somebody else taking over the responsibilities that the police handle.” 

Advocates and protesters contend that allocating funds to social services could improve mental health, addiction and homelessness in different communities, and that it is a better use of taxpayer money. 

Good morning, it’s a beautiful day to defund the police pic.twitter.com/Fxyw3qcmlA

— Allyson BLM 🔜 ?? some festival eventually (@Allys0nwondrlnd) July 7, 2020

The city cuts will reduce municipal services, hirings and in response to the recent protests, take around $1 billion from the Police Department. But protesters argue Mayor Bill de Blasio is not really shifting money away from the police department  amd into programs that will benefit minority communities.

For example, $400 million of the $1 billion cut will be achieved by moving school safety officers under the Department of Education. However, The New York Times reported that the Education Department already sends $300 million a year to police to fund school safety programs, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. This means that the DOE  will now operate a program it had already been underwriting. Critics say all De Blasio is doing is moving money around and now really cutting the police budget.

Some protesters are also pushing for community policing. But Kenney warns cutting down community police interactions and replacing them with neighborhood vigilantes is risky. 

 “If you shut down police departments, you would then have little islands where you got very different kinds of policing,” Kenney said. “For example, in the Bronx, citizen groups would do something and then in Soho other citizen groups would do different things. So you end up with this hodge podge of extreme tribalism where the rules are different when you cross the street.” 

Barry Latzer, a professor of criminal justice at John Jay College, and former assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, also believes communities policing themselves could be dangerous. 

“The risk of using citizens is that you have non-professionals doing what professionals do,” he said. “There are violent, armed people on the streets and I don’t think we want unprofessional citizens to interact with them. If they do, I think we would have more incidents of shooting and use of force.”

Another challenge with implementing changes to policing is the hyper-localized nature of police departments across the U.S.

“The challenge with saying, ‘We’ll just put programs in place and reform American policing’ is that reforming 18,000 agencies is a tough task. Reforming one agency is already a tough task,” said Eric Piza, an associate professor at John Jay College, and former GIS specialist of the New Jersey Police Department. 

Piza agreed that defunding the police is feasible as long as it is done strategically and gradually. For instance, programs and organizations that will take on mental health or drug overdose calls would have to be prepared to respond to calls on a 24/7 basis as police departments currently do. 

“If we’re going to take mental health funding away from the police, but not give that money to another agency to make up for the loss of policing that problem, then that’s a problem that probably won’t get any better,” he said. 

Kenney doesn’t think defunding the police is not a viable answer, even if each department is hyper-localized. He believes the services police provide now would have to be provided in through citizen community groups and organizations. Reforms would need to happen on a “neighborhood by neighborhood basis.” Knowing why policing is not effective in certain communities will be key.

“We know collaboration between them (the police) and the community members is the key, “ he said.  “There are 18,000 police departments and 18,000 versions are gonna have to happen.”

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“We were on our way and we thought, ‘Let’s calm down, this probably won’t last long and we will probably be able to return in two weeks.’ That was our hope, but we’ve been here almost three months without being able to return to Venezuela,” she said. 

Asuaje and her family are part of approximately 1,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. waiting for a charter or humanitarian flight to return them home. Most left behind family, businesses and jobs thinking they would only be gone for a couple of weeks. None of them expected that their trip would not have a return date. On March 17, the National Institute of Civil Aeronautics announced on its website and on social media that Venezuela’s airspace will be closed to foreign and domestic flights, following direct orders from Maduro’s administration. Since then, they have sent monthly announcements extending the restriction. 

Screenshot of the email many have received from the Embassy of Venezuela to the U.S. “We remind you that currently, Maduro’s dictatorship is the only impediment to your return…if there is any update or solution, we will communicate with you promptly.”

In some cases, their tourist visas will expire soon and they cannot cover the cost of renewal, which would leave them in an illegal status. Others can no longer afford lodging, food or medical expenses, forcing them to seek help from churches for shelter and humanitarian aid.

“We need to work immediately. We need an income because we no longer have money,” said Azuaje, who has two children, ages three and four. 

They hoped to get a job through friends in Massachusetts, but they contracted the virus and were unable to offer them help. A Methodist church in Georgia has been covering some lodging costs and helping them find solutions while they wait for a return date.

Desperate, this group of Venezuelans has contacted ambassadors and diplomats of both Maduro’s administration and Guaidó’s interim administration. Since Guaidó, the former leader of the National Assembly, claimed the presidency in January of last year Venezuela has had two presidents, complicating the already trembling relations with the U.S. Although the U.S. backed his claim to the presidency, the embassy of the Guaidó administration cannot perform many of the regular consular services due to the continuing power struggle with Maduro in Venezuela.  

Not receiving any responses from either has led them to create Instagram accounts such as @venezolanosvaradosenusa2020, where they have organized lists to register those who are waiting for a repatriation flight. The list was sent to the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico and the United States with passport data, but they have not offered any solutions to date. The organizers of the Instagram account also created WhatsApp groups to keep everyone updated and help each other. 

Venezuelansstrandedinusa2020 Instagram account, where they post updates and news about the airspace closure.

The lack of consular services, the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations and the existence of two governments in the same country leave this group of Venezuelans totally helpless.

For Carlos Bouzada, it was frustrating to see how his friends from Peru and Colombia were able to return home on a humanitarian flight sent by their respective governments. Bouzada arrived in Tarrytown, New York, on January 6 to study English until March 14 at the EF institute. It was a trip to help him define his career and improve his language skills. However, it became the worst experience he has ever had.

He was on his way to the airport when he received an email from Avior airline notifying him that his flight was cancelled due to the virus. That same week, Bouzada was forced to lock himself in his dorm in EF since other students tested positive for COVID-19. 

“It is hypocritical that people are allowed to cross (Brazil and Colombia’s) borders by foot where it is more difficult to control people than at the airport,” he said. “We are all Venezuelans, we have the right to enter Venezuela. They cannot take away from us the right to enter, even if there is a virus. Obviously, the measures that have to be taken must be complied with, but they cannot prohibit people living in Venezuela from entering their country.” 

Despite the political polarization in the country, these Venezuelans do not care if it is Maduro or Guaidó’s government that returns them home.  

“Both Maduro and Guaidó are playing with us because they want to politicize our situation,” said  Nayroby D’ Onofrio, who had come to Florida for a short business trip and left an 8 -year-old son in Venezuela. “So we are left in the middle with our difficulties. No one is thinking of us, they’re only thinking of fulfilling their political agendas.” D’Onofrio has not seen her son since March.

“We are all willing to pay for our flight and quarantine in Venezuela, because all of us who are stranded have our return ticket, we are not immigrants,” she said.

For Luis Valles, who came to the U.S. to visit relatives in Miami and Baltimore, the most difficult thing is the uncertainty of not knowing when he will be able to return to meet his wife and son, who is just three months old. 

“We are compatriots, we are Venezuelans, we are kidnapped,” he said. “We are constrained without being able to do anything, without being able to return  home. Ninety percent of the people in this group are affected mostly by being far away from family.”

In addition to not knowing when they will go back home, they do not know what the quarantine conditions will be like when they arrive in Venezuela. 

“They put people who arrived from the Dominican Republic in abandoned houses and took away passports and telephones, but I am willing to take that risk as long as I can set foot on (Venezuelan) soil,” Valles said. 

The post Venezuelan government leaves residents stranded in U.S. during pandemic appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

“Art and activism go hand-in-hand. Artists can physically see the emotion that people are experiencing, the trauma, the disregard, the bloodshed. It’s a mark of what is occurring. It’s another way to write history and to keep records,” said Smith. 

During the month of June there have been more searches for black-owned businesses throughout the country. According to Google Trends data, searches for “how to support black owned businesses” saw a 133% increase from June 1 to June 7. 

“Because of the recent events with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor there’s been a resurgence of people really wanting to support black businesses, and that has positively affected my business,” she said. “But because something so traumatic positively affected my business, I feel like it’s my responsibility as a black business owner to make sure I’m giving back to the people who are giving to me.” 

Smith surpassed many obstacles when she decided she would make her passion, ceramics, into a business. She encountered many of the same challenges most people face when breaking into the art and small business worlds, i.e. applying for loans, building a customer base, marketing, etc. But she noticed an additional barrier when trying to enter art spaces to display her hand-built ceramic jewelry: the lack of diversity.

Smith’s Sio Ceramics hand-made earrings.

 “I was submitting work into shows and wasn’t getting accepted,” she said. “What criteria am I not fitting into that’s not making my work visible? And you know, I thought of all the institutional barriers that are within the art world; it’s very white and very male centric.” 

Instead of trying to find an art show or event she could fit in, Smith decided to create her own event to display her pieces. She reached out to A.J. Dunlap, the founder of Andie & AJ, an online platform that highlights diverse beauty to create an artistry group. From that partnership emerged Th3 Funktion, and the pair organized their first exhibition and fashion show in November of last year. 

“The purpose of making the show was combining two different art forms together, but also creating an inclusive space where people felt represented,” she said. “And a lot of the models that we had in the show were representative of different races and different gender identities.” 

Smith said visibility is key for black-owned businesses because they struggle the most with getting access to capital. According to a report by the Minority Business Development Agency, loan denial rates for minority businesses are three times higher than denial rates for non-minority businesses. 

“I think representation is super duper important,” Smith said. “Having opportunities where you see black businesses coming together make them more accessible. If you don’t see them, how do you really know they even exist?” 

She plans to donate to other local groups helping minorities in D.C. and continue to create black-owned business resources in Sio Ceramics’ Instagram page. According to her, there are many other ways to support these businesses besides donating or purchasing their products. 

“Imagine if everyone’s sharing one black business with a friend that they liked, that is just as important,” Smith said. “It’s about doing what’s within your power to make an impact, and a lot of the important things are the day-to-day interactions. Talk to your friends about black businesses you want to support.”

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While the SEBIN officers were waiting for the family to arrive, they ravaged their apartment in Caracas, going through all their belongings. After that call, the Sosa family had to leave everything behind and plan their escape. They were able to cross the border to Colombia by car, and from there they flew to Florida to apply for political asylum. After a series of odd jobs, Sosa finally found a job related to her engineering degree in New York. Her first day at the job was Monday, March 9. On Friday, March 13, the office closed and the city went on lockdown.  

“The first day in the job I cried because I couldn’t believe where I was,” Sosa said referring to the Major League Baseball office building at the Rockefeller center. “But I literally started on a Monday, and Friday of that same week the office closed because of the coronavirus. [In the office] it felt as if it had been 9/11, all the games were being cancelled, it was horrible.” 

 Venezuelans who have migrated to New York in the past two or three years have had to confront two crises in a short time frame. They left their country to flee rampant crime, hyperinflation, food scarcity, and social and political instability only to find the U.S. is plagued by its own set of issues, such as social inequality, racial disparity and police brutality, all of which are more evident in New York and the COVID-19 outbreak has exacerbated. 

Niurka Melendez, founder of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid (VIA), a non-profit organization for Venezuelans in New York, did not receive the $1,200 stimulus check as a Venezuelan asylum seeker.

“Venezuelans are seeing themselves left without nothing again, and I say again because starting from ground zero is not something new for them,” Melendez said. “After achieving some degree of financial stability they are stripped from it once more.” 

Sosa and her family applied for political asylum because her mom was accused of participating in a drone attack against President Nicolas Maduro during a 2018 military ceremony in Caracas. Sosa said her mom had been helping student protesters who were struggling because of the country’s political turmoil. She collected food and clothing for them, and helped them find shelter. When the drone attack took place, Maduro’s government conducted arbitrary arrests, which included some of the students Sosa’s mother had been helping.

The SEBIN took their cellphones and saw WhatsApp messages from Sosa’s mother offering the students assistance. She was immediately implicated in the drone attacks, and currently there is an extradition request from Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Sosa’s mother. 

“The neighbor told us the SEBIN was at our apartment and there was no way we could go back,” Sosa said. “We never returned, all we know from our neighbor is that they waited for us for hours while drinking our whiskey, wine and all the food in our fridge. They stole our TVs, our clothing, jewelry, our legal documents and left the apartment completely empty.” 

 Despite direct prosecution of the Sosa family from the Maduro government, Sosa is currently waiting for her political asylum application to be approved by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, (USCIS) a process that usually takes years and could be further delayed due to COVID-19. According to the USCIS website, the New York asylum office will be closed indefinitely.

 The broken diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela have restricted Venezuelans’ access to consular services. Also, many of the Venezuelans who have recently migrated find themselves in a legal limbo when arriving in the U.S. Hence, they do not have support from the country they left behind and they do not have support from the country they migrated to. This issue has become more evident during the pandemic. 

Ana Garcia, 19, arrived in New York in September of last year because she was awarded a scholarship to study performing arts in the New York Film Academy. Typically, international students arrive in the U.S. with a student visa already approved in their home countries. But since the U.S. embassy in Caracas is closed, Garcia had to enter the U.S. with a tourist visa and had to apply for a student visa once she was in New York. 

While she awaited a response from USCIS, she did a Google search for “Venezuelan restaurants near me,” and walked into several of them to ask if they were hiring. One of them was, and she worked as a server there until the restaurant closed due to the city-wide lockdown. After the outbreak started, USCIS canceled the interview they had scheduled with her to approve her student visa without a new date. She requested her name to be changed as she fears this information could affect her student visa approval.

 Garcia had to move out of New York to stay with a friend in North Carolina to cut costs. Without a job and without being eligible for economic assistance from the U.S. government, a New York rent was impossible to pay. 

“It’s like going from one hell to another,” she said. “Just when I feel like I have achieved a better life, the [pandemic] happens. It hit New York so hard and it was really difficult for me, especially as an immigrant. I don’t have the same rights an American has. I’ve had to figure out everything on my own. I’m only 19, I’m not a grown woman with her life figured out, so it’s really hard.”  

Melendez said there are still many paradigms with the Venezuelan migration.

“Countries still haven’t recognized Venezuelans as refugees. When Cubans arrive in Miami they obtain legal status, but not Venezuelans,” she said.  “Even though it is a forced migration due to the humanitarian crisis, the U.S. doesn’t recognize it as such. What [VIA] has seen during these 12 weeks of quarantine in New York is that, due to their irregular legal status, Venezuelans can only count on the support from churches, or an organization like [ours], or the International Rescue Committee.”

She added that she does not expect any support from the Venezuelan government for COVID-19 because of the longstanding lack of consular services. 

 Garcia has to return to New York eventually because she started all her migration paperwork in the USCIS office there. She is deciding whether to delay her start at the New York Film Academy a year, or until she knows for certain she will be able to attend classes in person. She cannot return to her home in Caracas because of her pending visa appointment. Garcia is counting only on the support of Venezuelan friends she has made since her arrival in the city. One of the most difficult things for her is not being able to be with her family. 

“In Venezuela you have your home, you have your family.  Even though it is horrible there, you have your own roof,” she said.

Since Sosa’s arrival in the U.S., all the jobs she has landed have been through her own search or through word of mouth, and she does not know of any organizations that help Venezuelans integrate to their new communities. She was able to maintain her engineering position and is currently working remotely from New York, but her weekly hours were reduced. For her, the social and political unrest brought by COVID-19 and the police murder of George Floyd are reminiscent of the ongoing protests in Caracas demanding reform and justice from the government. She is used to the social and political unrest that has followed her all the way to the U.S., but she is not used to being far away from her family, who is currently in Miami.

“Even though sometimes we wouldn’t have electricity or running water, I had a stable life [in Caracas] so I feel like I’ve been ripped from my nucleus,” she said. “This pandemic is killing me because of the anxiety of being alone.” 

If Maduro were to rescind, the Sosa family would return to Venezuela in a heartbeat. But as long as his administration is in power, they do not have that option.

“We couldn’t even leave the country by plane,” Sosa said. “We are literally exiled, we can’t return to Venezuela. If that wasn’t the case, I would be there.”

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Troops from all around the country helped civilian staff at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, and the Lincoln Center in the Bronx for more than six weeks. The Army Reserve had dispatched task forces to each of these centers that included preventive medicine and infectious disease specialists, nurses, administrative staff and other medical specialists. 

Lieutenant Aykhan Alibayli was one of those volunteers working on administrative tasks and testing in the Lincoln Center from April 12 until May 27. 

“Initially when we were there, the hospitals were overwhelmed and didn’t have enough staff,” he said.“The nurses were working seven days a week non stop, so we were there to help them fill in their roles. But now that infections are low, they’re transitioning back to normal operation.” 

According to Alibayli, the hospitals are switching some of their floors from intensive care units (ICUs) back to medical surgical floors and clinics. 

Despite the exposure, all of the members of the 85-soldier task force in the Lincoln Center tested negative for the virus.

 “[The negative test results] probably show you that the proper hygiene and PPE usage does in fact work because we were right there in a COVID infested area.“All the patients were COVID-positive patients, so the fact that none of us got sick shows you that if you use the proper precaution you would be safe,” said Alibayli, who also tested negative for the virus. 

Major Theresa Simard who worked as a doctor in one of the ICUs in the Lincoln Center said she was sent home because the situation at the care facility is significantly better now. She attributed the decrease in cases to social distancing and the city lockdown. However, now that the cases have decreased she believes it is safe for the city to start slowly reopening. 

“If enough people can just keep it together, wear their masks, maintain social distancing and be respectful of the desease, we can go to stores, go shopping. We just can’t be on top of each other,” Simard said. 

Joining military and civilian medical workers during a pandemic was an unprecedented effort. It was a complex operation as the Army, Navy, Air Force and U.S. Public Health Corps had to all be deployed almost at once. Alibayli said that in the event of a resurgence, the military will be better prepared to confront the pandemic.

 “I think this time around the Army has a lot of lessons learned,” he said.“Because previously, we’ve never really done an exercise like that. I think the closest one was Katrina, but even then it wasn’t really a public health epidemic. But I think this time around, it was a good experience for us to really understand better in the future, how to deploy resources and utilize them in a quicker and more efficient way.”

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Under normal circumstances, spring season meant parks loaded with tourists and residents catching up with vitamin D, streets filled with pedestrians rushing to work or a rooftop event, and long lines of people waiting to get seated for brunch.

Now, in the midst of spring, parks are deserted and the few people at them are locals, streets have only a few pedestrians that don’t seem to be in a rush to get anywhere (except for healthcare and essential workers), and the only long lines are to enter the grocery stores.

The city that never sleeps is dormant.

Sunset at the Vessel in Hudson Yards, April 22, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

Army soldiers and a civilian walking around Hudson Yards, April 22, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

A guitarist at Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace, April 23, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

Fort Tryon Park during a nice spring afternoon, April 4, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

A view from Fort Tryon Park of the George Washington Bridge, April 4 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

Bryant Park on a Saturday at 5:30pm, April 23, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

A lot of grass at Bryant Park, but nowhere to lay down. Due to COVID-19, the grass is off limits to prevent social interaction, April 23, 2020. Photo by Maria Abreu

This is a project of Lori Grinker’s NYU graduate photojournalism class.

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