Philly Plain Dealer

Earlier this week, the 7th street business corridor was nothing short of a ghost town. Businesses were closed and community members were indoors as signs went up around the neighborhood. “ICE may be planning to raid the following areas: 5th & Washington Ave, 7th & Snyder Ave, 5th & Mckean/ Wolf streets,” and indeed they did just that. On Tuesday morning, residents witnessed a man being detained by ICE on 8th and Snyder streets. 

“It looked like right as they were going to work, they were picked up by someone in like a DEA black jacket, then throughout the rest of the day in other group chats there was talk about unmarked being parked at 7th and snyder for most of the day,” said a man who prefers to be anonymous.

In a video that was filmed by multiple residents in the neighborhood, the footage showed a latino man being handcuffed and brought into one of the unmarked police vehicles. Allegedly, 2 individuals have been picked up in South Philly and 3 in north Philly this week. The unidentified man who was picked up on 8th & Snyder avenue and another individual who was picked up on Columbus Blvd & Tasker Street.

“There was a queasiness in the air almost. People are definitely worried. I walked out of  my house and onto snyder and saw people just go into their houses, the streets feel very empty. People closing their businesses out of concern of being picked up, for the community and additional the additional raids that may be happening,” he said.

On Thursday, I was able to take a walk with a member from a local neighborhood organization that is focused on advocating, supporting and assisting residents in various ways with different resources. The 7th street corridor specifically,  covers roughly  from 7th & Mckean  to 7th and Porter Streets. With roughly about 65-70 businesses in and around the corridor, over 10 of those businesses were closed from the beginning to middle of this week due to the looming fear of the ICE raids. 

 Even prior to this, once the Trump administration had begun in office the community focused organizations have been using a great deal of their efforts to assist residents during these troubling times in countless ways. Whether giving out red cards for business owners and their customers in 27 different languages, to having immigration focused “town hall” style meetings about their rights, or educating community members on as much as possible during this time. But, they’re finding it difficult to find their identity in all this, like whether they’re best at providing resources for support or whether it’s to get out in the street and possibly be in the face of an ICE agent threatening the community. 

“All of the migration that happened here, is the long term effect of U.S. invasion into other countries. You have chain migration from Cambodia from Vietnam, that’s all people fleeing from a U.S. caused war, but now we have this militarized force sanctioned force, ICE, saying no immigrants get out. It’s a continuous vicious cycle of imperialism that beats down poor people and people of color.”