Immigration has become the defining fault line in several New York Democratic primary races ahead of Tuesday's June 24 election, as a group of challengers — many of them children of immigrants themselves — argue their party has abandoned the communities that helped build it. Early voting is already underway.
Among those making that case is Aber Kawas, a community organizer running for a State Senate seat in Queens against Assembly member Steven Raga. Kawas, whose Palestinian refugee father was detained and deported by ICE, frames the race in stark terms. "What we all have realized as people who have been voting for the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party has failed us," she told Documented NY. "They have failed to be bold and proactive in protecting immigrant communities."
Her platform calls for abolishing ICE, creating a pathway to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status holders, and passing a strengthened version of the New York For All bill — legislation that would cut off local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. She is one of several insurgent candidates who have placed immigration at the heart of their campaigns.
In the 13th congressional district, Darializa Avila Chevalier — an Afro-Latina whose parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic — is mounting a challenge against five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, himself the first formerly undocumented immigrant ever elected to Congress. Abolishing ICE tops Chevalier's list of priorities, and she is also pushing to guarantee free legal representation for immigrants caught in what she describes as an "unnecessarily chaotic and complicated" system. She sees the broader wave of immigrant-background candidates as a political signal. "This wave of candidates from immigrant families running for office is the Democratic Party's wake-up call that they have failed to meet our needs, and so now we have to fight for them in the halls of power," Chevalier told Documented.
The 6th congressional district contest pits Chuck Park against incumbent Grace Meng. Park, whose Korean immigrant parents sold goods as street peddlers on Canal Street, served as a diplomat during the Obama administration before entering the race. He described last October's ICE operation on Canal Street — in which agents arrived in armored vehicles carrying assault rifles to detain street vendors — as something that struck him at a personal level. "My immigrant identity is critical and crucial to who I am as a person and what this campaign is about, because my exact story is what is under attack right now," Park told Documented. He has criticized Meng and fellow Democrats for declining to push for ICE's abolition and for continuing to approve funding for the Department of Homeland Security. "It's not sufficient to just be an immigrant or be the child of immigrants, you have to actually take action to protect immigrant communities," he said.
Also in the field is an Arab-Latina candidate who is the daughter of Syrian and Mexican immigrants, part of the same cohort of challengers documented by Documented NY. Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a naturalized citizen widely described as the city's first immigrant mayor in generations — has thrown his support behind several of these insurgent contenders, according to the report. Across the board, the challengers have been canvassing heavily around their shared call to abolish ICE and end municipal cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
None of the incumbents named in the report offered a response according to the source account.
Informational content only, not legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.