If there is a no man's land in New York, it is undoubtedly called Times Square. It belongs to no one because the world has appropriated it.
Nearly half a million people from any country on the globe pass through this famous crossroads in the heart of Manhattan every day, a free zone illuminated by neon night and day, surrounded by theaters and conventional establishments of all kinds, where the noise, music, the narrative of nostalgia for bohemia, races, languages, hustlers, tourists, and to a much lesser extent New Yorkers, who renounced this enclave and which they only travel through if necessary. They say that they have not lost anything there.
After decades of bad reputation, in that time of the seventies and eighties of the last century characterized by prostitution (both sexes) and drugs, and everything that these markets produce linked to crime, the collusion of the real estate sector, the business hotel industry and the expansion of the 'low cost' tourism industry transformed this place into a domesticated agglomeration point, a must-see for families, where today sugar candy stores and marijuana stores coexist normally.
In Times Square, the proverb says, dreams come true and there is a bright sign for literally everything, for those who announce their innovations, make themselves known, celebrate their successes or ask their partner for their hand. This large urban setting is also a large screen on which human miseries are projected.
This crossroads has lately become the showcase of the conflict generated by the massive arrival of immigrants who illegally crossed the border with Mexico along the Rio Grande, mostly sent in buses chartered by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, the Republican. ultra conservative that turns to these vulnerable people to use them as pawns in its attack against the Biden administration at the expense of the liberalism of this metropolis.
Since the spring of 2022, more than 150,000 undocumented immigrants have arrived. Throughout this period, and apart from the non-irrelevant issue of trying to provide shelter for them and the cost that this entails for the municipal coffers, no relevant incidents had been recorded. New York is synonymous with welcome, a sanctuary city for immigrants.
But something was latent. So a series of episodes starring a minority of undocumented people (almost all Venezuelans, an essential part of the flow), such as a confrontation with the police, the dismantling of a gang of thieves and a 15-year-old teenager who opened fire and injured a tourist, has caused the Republicans in the Big Apple to cry out loud.
Despite the fact that crime figures are falling, and that experts do not establish a direct link between crimes and more immigrants, conservative political forces proclaim that this is an invasion and require a stronger hand in the streets.
In the midst of this controversy, the climax was reached a few days ago live on the Fox channel. The vigilante Curtis Sliwa, former candidate for mayor in 2021 for the Republican Party and creator of the Guardian Angels in 1979 in his attributed car stalking against crime (they are distinguished by their red beret), stood in Times Square to do an interview with Sean Hannity, one of the ultra stars of Fox. In the middle of the conversation, several guardian angels who were behind their leader came out of the flat.
“Our guys just detained one of the immigrants. They have seen it and they have stopped it,” Sliwa proclaimed with joy, a euphoria shared with Hannity. The camera panned to show several vigilantes surrounding a man, who was then knocked down and pinned to the ground. “We have given him a little pain, his mother in Venezuela must have felt the vibrations,” stressed Sliwa victoriously, who assured that this person was a thief.
“We're going to take back 42nd Street, Sean. These illegals say it's theirs. They think they rule at night. “This is our country and if they cannot comply with the rules, we will send them back to where they come from,” Sliwa insisted.
It is true that the “detainee” looked Hispanic and spoke in Spanish. But he was not a thief, nor a Venezuelan, but rather a long-time resident of the Bronx who passed by there. This action, broadcast live, aroused fear and indignation at the so-called anti-immigrant vigilantes, who could be anyone in New York.
The president of the Manhattan council, Mark Levine, rebuked Sliwa in a post on the networks. “These types of actions are the predictable result of the relentless vilification of immigrants. This is a mistake and does not make anyone safer,” he stated.
The New York police and the Manhattan prosecutor, Democrat Alvin Bragg, have opened an investigation into the vigilantes. Given the situation, Sliwa himself acknowledged that he made a mistake and that he overacted, although he reiterated that the prosecutor and the uniformed officers must pay more attention to what is happening in that area. Prosecutor Bragg found the initiative of the guardian angels “disturbing.” Governor Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, rejected that anyone can take the law into their own hands. “This is not the Wild West,” she added.
This case of vigilante violence was recorded after the dissemination of a video in which a dozen immigrants are seen confronting and fighting with a pair of uniformed men, whom they beat. This happened at the door of a shelter that is located in the middle of Times Square. According to the police version, the officers asked those men not to block the sidewalk. On the other hand, the recording from the uniform camera of one of the police officers shows a somewhat different version. Those reprimanded heeded the order and only one, who was talking on his cell phone, stayed still and asked them not to touch him. And he got messed up.
The case put pressure on Democratic leaders, both Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams. And even more so when Bragg released those involved in detention without bail, except for one, the supposed initiator of everything, whom he sent to jail. Criticism rained down on him from his side, including those from Hochul and the State Attorney General, Letitia James. Bragg replied that he was worried about wrongly accusing someone.
After a couple of days he rectified it. She claimed to have more confidence in the identifications, opened charges against seven of the participants (others remain unknown) and indicated that she would not tolerate attacks “on our police.”
Mayor Adams has also played an ambiguous role, but in reverse. Given the arrival of undocumented immigrants, he made the declaration that these immigrants “are going to destroy” the city, a comment that earned him praise from conservatives and a fierce response from his own, the progressives, who reminded him that people coming from outside They are an essential part of the fabric of New York, and its livelihood.
This same week, remembering his time as a police officer, he put on the bulletproof vest and accompanied the officers in the operation against a gang of thieves, among whom were basically thieves.
A couple of days later, when Bragg filed charges for the shelter confrontation, Adams moderated his tone somewhat at the press conference. “The police do not have the luxury of doing what we have seen to Sliwa,” he responded. “You see someone on a street corner, and based on their ethnicity, you automatically identify them as an immigrant or asylum seeker and not a long-time resident of the Bronx. This is not what we can do. We have to do it well,” he said.
He reiterated that “only a small minority of immigrants break the laws.” His critics countered, however, that Adams' language and gestures are “an amplification of far-right anti-immigrant rhetoric and reckless fear-mongering is fueling violence against our neighbors.”
The flow of the Rio Grande runs and splashes in Times Square. The drumbeat of anti-immigrant sentiment has been rising in New York for months. In the networks, positions have been polarized. There are those who claim that there is a wave of crimes encouraged by undocumented immigrants. The data, the statistics insist, does not support that issue.
“A few high-profile incidents don't create a crime wave,” Christopher Hermann, a criminology professor at John Jay College, told the Daily News.
These critics stressed that the alarmism put in place is disproportionate to the crimes that are recorded in the city and that, the more immigrants are demonized, the more likely it is that encounters like that of Sliwa and imitators will become more frequent. For this reason, they demand that the mayor and the police department stop fanning the flames of hate and spreading misinformation, as well as making immigrants scapegoats for the problems.
Things that happen in Times Square, that no man's land.
