Editor’s Note: Don’t let migrant protests taint New York’s reputation

The image was strangely familiar: Curtis Sliwa standing at a podium under an American flag addressing a crowd at a rally against having asylum-seekers move into a Staten Island shelter. It reminded me of Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump inciting the mob that would storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, and the defiance of that moment seemed repeated at the Staten Island demonstration held on Sept. 19. Demonstrators blocked a bus with migrants from reaching the shelter. Nine were arrested for disorderly conduct and a 10th was charged with assaulting a police officer.

It was the latest in a string of protests against migrants being sheltered in the borough. “This is a group that wants to create violence and wants to create chaos,” said Yesenia Mata, executive director of La Colmena, a nonprofit supporting day laborers, domestic workers and other low-wage immigrant workers on Staten Island. The organization tweeted a warning to elected officials against participating in such rallies, noting they deliver the “same message used to execute (the) insurrection in DC.”

Mata, the child of Mexican immigrants and a U.S. Army reservist serving in the military police, has fielded hateful remarks and threats because of her stand against the protesters. This kind of infectious hate must be stopped before it spreads like a cancer. Even this note puts her in the crosshairs, she said. Mata insisted that I still write the piece. “I think it’s very important for this to come out,” she told me. “Somebody needs to say something back.”