In New York, immigration weighed heavily and divisively among immigrants themselves

NEW YORK — It was an unusually warm night for November in New York City.

In Staten Island, a conservative stronghold of the city, immigration was front and center on voters' minds in Tuesday's election.

For months, Donald Trump and his campaign have been promising mass deportations. In a city that has received some 200,000 new migrants in the last two years, that promise has resonated among some.

"He’s gonna close that border again," said 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."

These points of view were to be expected in this deeply Republican part of town. Out in Jackson Heights, Queens, the picture was more complicated.

NPR first stopped by a Bangladeshi part of the neighborhood, where the election results were being broadcast on a giant outdoor screen. Amen Kahn was watching the broadcast and sipping some tea.

Khan is in the country legally, and he cannot vote. But he said that if he could have, it would have been for Donald Trump.

New York City is a Democratic stronghold, and Jackson Heights, the neighborhood in which we met Khan, is synonymous with its diverse immigrant communities. The mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign would target areas like these. And yet, on election night, this community was deeply divided on its support of former President Donald Trump.

"I’m also [an] immigrant," Khan said. "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 in this crowd disagreed with him.

Standing at the doorway to his clothing store, Mithu Ahmed invited us into a world of gorgeous fabrics and jewelry. He wouldn’t say who he voted for, because he said this community is way too divided on the issue.

But he did say he lost a lot of business during the pandemic. It was immigrants who brought it back. "Who comes to our store? The immigrants." Without them, he said, the economy would suffer.

"Elon Musk," he jokes, "is not buying my stuff."

A few blocks up, at the Latin music bar Terraza 7, the owner, Freddy Castiblanco, watched the election on a big screen, nervously. He said a lot of the Latino immigrants who have been here for decades support Trump.

Some recalled feeling afraid during the Obama presidency, who they referred to as "the Deporter-in-Chief." They said they feel Democratic immigration policy has become hard to distinguish from Republican. (In this campaign cycle, Democrats moved further right in their immigration rhetoric.)

Others tell Castiblanco "that they are outraged," he said. "They’ve been waiting for years, decades, for a path to legalization. Why should these newer migrants get any assistance?"

Standing outside, a woman named Prita Rozario looked sad and tired. "I’m very disgusted and very sad, and heartbroken. These people are immigrants themselves."

Rozario, originally from Bangladesh, voted Tuesday as a U.S. citizen.

As she tells us that she cast her ballot for Kamala Harris, a woman walks by and yells at Rozario in Spanish, "Stupid communist!" before disappearing into the dark streets of this very deeply divided neighborhood.