NYC Landlords Weaponize ICE Threats Against Vulnerable Tenants
A Bushwick landlord in November allegedly threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if a tenant didn't vacate their apartment within 10 days, even though the landlord hadn't started formal eviction proceedings.
A Queens landlord in December allegedly threatened the same if a tenant refused to pay an extra $1,000 a month in rent.
An employee for a Brooklyn landlord in February allegedly threatened to contact immigration enforcement in a dispute with an elderly tenant over the rent-stabilization status of their apartment.
These cases are among the complaints the advocacy group Make the Road New York shared with City Council members on Monday, in a hearing on cases where landlords allegedly used fear of immigration enforcement to coerce tenants.
The organization said it has received seven such complaints since November - enough to prompt the group's housing attorneys, who represent tenants in Brooklyn and Queens, to create a tracker for logging such complaints.
Ibrahim Ramoul, a housing attorney with the group, told councilmembers he's seen a "worrying uptick in landlord harassment and threats to tenants related to perceived or actual immigration status" in the past year.
Ramoul and other housing attorneys are requesting that the City Council pursue remedies to deter landlords from harassing tenants. They said they support a City Council bill that would make permanent a pilot program started in 2018 aimed at discouraging landlords from harassing tenants.
The program requires owners of certain buildings seeking approvals for construction work to first obtain certification, based on interviews with current and former tenants, that the landlord and building staff have not harassed tenants.
"This is one flavor of a series of behaviors that we see all the time, unfortunately, in our line of work, whether it's sexual harassment...or just your run-of-the-mill turning off services or sending angry emails," Ramoul said in an interview after the hearing. "There's an additional layer of vulnerability because some of these clients might actually have an immigration situation that could render them subject to additional enforcement. And so it's very concerning."
Housing attorneys said there is little to deter landlords from engaging in landlord harassment. Katie Anderson, housing attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, testified that her clients often don't want to go on the record in housing court and potentially face further retaliation.
A 2011 report by the Community Services Society found that 16% of low-income, first-generation immigrant New Yorkers lived in apartments with poor conditions - that is, having multiple issues such as rats or pests, water leaks, inadequate heating, or cracks or holes in the walls.
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