Meet the ‘Agitators’: New York’s Migrant Opposition Supported by These Leftists and Others

Among the activists accused by the city of helping to fuel the migrant standoff outside Manhattan’s Watson Hotel were a California “community organizer” and a New York-based writer who sparked controversy with her open letter that got her fired from Yelp.

At least one person in the group also distributed an anti-police leaflet issued by an anarchist organization that bills itself as a “rebel alliance” to “act against all forces that threaten your freedom.”

On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams criticized the activists as “agitators who I think are really doing a disservice to migrants and the children and families we move into hotels.”

The city’s immigrant commissioner, Manuel Castro, also accused the mob instigators of outright lying to the migrants, telling Univision they were “looking for some kind of political motive.”

“They are telling them that we are setting up detention centers, which is not true,” Castro said.

The standoff, which began on Sunday when more than 50 single male migrants refused to move from Manhattan’s three-star Watson Hotel to a new shelter in Brooklyn, ended Wednesday night when the NYPD forced about 25 remaining diehards to leave their sidewalk camp.

On Thursday morning, The Post found a Spanish-language leaflet near the scene called “7 myths about the police” that challenged notions that police officers “exercise legitimate authority” and that “we need the police to protect us.”

The illustrations for the pamphlet included a picture of a policeman in riot gear hitting someone on the ground and the caption: “Protect and serve you until you break your head.”

According to the leaflet, it was produced by CrimethInc., which is described on its website as “a decentralized network committed to anonymous collective action to escape the prisons of our age.”

Here are the biographies of some of the activists involved in the confrontation:

Caroline Wong, 50

A native of Queens, Wong told The Post that she now lives in Los Angeles and got into the Big Apple through her work as a national organizer of the left-wing Coalition for Affirmative Action, Inclusion, Immigrant Rights and the Fight for Equality by Any Means.

Wong said four other members of the group, known as BAMN, joined her during the standoff Wednesday morning and have plans for even more arrivals.

“We are trying to agree on who can fly in and who can rent a car,” she said. “Some from New Yorkers, some from Detroit, some from California, some from the Bay Area, like in Oakland.”

According to published reports, Wong organized protests on college campuses across the country.

“We go everywhere,” she said. “The issue of immigration is the issue of the world right now – every city, every state, every country.”

Wong also argued, without providing evidence, that the new migrant shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal was “essentially a set-up” for federal immigration authorities to deport them.

“We will fight this,” she said. “This is everyone’s fight. I don’t know how long it will last.”

Thalia Jane, 32

Brooklyn-based Jane was fired from Yelp in 2016 after publishing an open letter to the company’s chairman complaining about not making enough money as a customer service representative for her Eat24 food delivery affiliate in San Francisco.

Jane later wrote a column for The Post about the inevitable backlash, including ridicule from the then senator. Ben Sass (Republican, Nebraska) in his book The Disappearing Adult American, but then got revenge on the beloved New York tabloid by trashing its 2021 coverage of protesters accused of vandalism during a Black Lives Matter march.

Although she positions herself on Twitter as “a freelance reporter covering police, extremism and activism everywhere,” Jane tweeted on Wednesday night for “self-help groups” to contact her “if you have anyone who can help” in storing information about migrants. property after their camp was dismantled.

Jane was also called on Thursday by the City Hall’s Office of Immigrant Affairs over a tweet in which she was criticized for “accusing people practicing basic safety habits to avoid harassment from bigots and racists (who have been heavily pursuing this whole situation) of being that they are “agitators”. ‘”

“Are you an activist or a journalist?” The agency tweeted her. – We do not understand.

In an interview, Jane told The Post that the tweet was “not something I normally do”.

“It was really chaotic,” she said. “I do not think. That doesn’t make me an activist.”

Sergio Tupac Uzurin, 37

Uzurin, from Queens, graduated from the city’s elite Stuyvesant High School, considered one of the best public schools in the country, and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University at Buffalo.

He runs his own video production company, Native NY Video, and has posted a “Corporate Spot” on YouTube that features performances by bigwigs including Miami real estate mogul Roy Donahue Peebles.

But in his spare time, Uzurin, who also worked as a videographer for The Post, is a member of the immigrant advocacy group NYC ICE Watch, which publicly calls for empty luxury apartments to be turned over to migrants.

Uzurin told radio station 1010 WINS last month that a stretch of Manhattan’s 57th Street known as “Billionaires Street” is a good place to start.

“These super towers are 40% empty,” he said. “With their huge apartments, they could accommodate most of the migrants.”

Messages left to Uzurin late Thursday night were not immediately returned.

Meryl Ranzer, 59

Ranser, from Manhattan, is an adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology whose resume includes designing “private label” clothing for luxury retailers Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue and Victoria’s Secret.

During the standoff at the Watson Hotel, the Kent State University alumnus described herself to The Post as an occasional non-profit volunteer and said migrants who refused to leave “made their own decisions and we’re here to support them.”

But in a 2019 essay posted on the Medium website, Ranzer, who handles communications and social media for Respond Crisis Translation, appeared to suggest that guilt could be a motivating factor.

“White women have access to power that others may not have, there are ways to exercise our privileges by standing behind and beside those who are marginalized and being guided by them,” she wrote.

And during an appearance on the School for Mothers podcast, Ranzer was even more outspoken.

“For those of us white people who have privileges, we need to step back and shut up,” she said.

Additional report by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Bruce Golding