http://gothamist.com/2017/03/08/deporta ... tivist.phpOn Thursday morning, Ravi Ragbir will arrive at Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan for his annual check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After passing through airport-style security, Ragbir, who was born in Trinidad, will head to a familiar room on the 9th floor, undecorated but for a small television typically tuned to Fox News. Here, an ICE deportation officer will decide if Ragbir can remain in the country he's called home for 26 years.
"I'm preparing for the worst," says Ragbir, who has faced the looming threat of deportation since his conviction for wire fraud in 2001. "I'm not planning any appointments after March 9th. I've cleaned out my apartment."
It's the Friday before the check-in and Ragbir and I are riding an express train to his office at Judson Memorial Church, where he serves as executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, an interfaith network of congregations and activists working to protect New York's immigrant families from detention and deportation. Ragbir started as a full-time organizer for the coalition in 2010, and has since become one of the city's most visible immigrant rights activists.
"Ravi is the most connected leader around," Donna Sprecher, minister at Judson and a founder of the coalition, told Gothamist. "He knows by name more undocumented people than just about anybody in the five boroughs."
At Times Square, Ragbir's phone lights up with news of a reported ICE raid in Queens. He fires off a few texts, then looks up from his phone. "What do you do in the last weekend?" he asks.
Ragbir says that he has promised his wife they'd do something special on what might be their last weekend together in the city. People have suggested Coney Island, but it's bitterly cold outside. They've never been to the top of the Empire State Building, but like most New Yorkers, they have no real interest in doing so.
"That's the easiest question, you would think, to answer, but it might be the most difficult," Ragbir says. "I can think about immigration and legal [matters] and all of this stuff and come up with some solution or strategy. But this, I don't know."