The feds were gone, along with the men they’d detained, and the volunteers went through the area, passing out whistles and know-your-rights information as they warned people about the street raid.
The alert proved timely: the officers returned twice more that afternoon. By then, neighbors were warning each other by blowing the whistles, according to a volunteer with Queens Neighborhoods United, one of many small groups that have begun tracking ICE activity in recent months.
“It was kind of a beautiful thing,” the person recalled, even as they seven people were arrested in the neighborhood over the course of that afternoon.
Sightings of federal agents appear to be increasing across the city, including arrests in Washington Heights this week,with additional sightings in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. (ICE has not issued arrest data since July.)
ICE activity on New York City streets has not yet approached the intensity of raids in Chicago that have involved tear gas and even agents rappelling down a high-rise building into private apartments. But New Yorkers responding to raids and bracing for more are taking a cue from activists there, passing out thousands of whistles in recent weeks as a low-tech way to alert people of ICE activity when they see it.
“It could be as easy as a noisemaker,” said Whitney Hu, a community activist and organizer with South Brooklyn Mutual Aid which passed out hundreds of whistles after learning about their use in Chicago. “It’s really hard for them to sneak up and scare people because they have like 20 citizens following them around with a fog horn, and that’s technically not against the law.”
In Sunset Park, where Hu is based, younger activists are using Signal chats, the Chinese community is mostly on WeChat and Latino immigrants are largely on WhatsApp, Hu said — but everyone knows how to use a whistle.
And the code is not complicated. Short bursts indicate an ICE sighting. Long whistles indicate agents making arrests. If you hear the whistle and you’re undocumented, said Hu, “you hide. And if you’re somebody who’s not, you go to the street.”
Hu is among a number of New Yorkers who are stocking up and passing out whistles in recent weeks.
“The day after the Canal Street raid I ordered a thousand,” said Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, the deputy director of the Street Vendor Project, which has started handing out whistles to street vendors, along with know-your-rights materials, and information on how to distinguish federal immigration agents from city police or Sanitation officers.
‘Resistance Energy’On Saturday, community groups passed out another 10,000 whistles as part of a day of action put on by Hands Off NYC, a coalition that includes dozens of unions, community groups, churches and political groups, hosting a day of action and events across the city.
Chicagoans started to use whistles to raise flag ICE activity for neighbors as Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz began in September, sending hundreds of federal agents to arrest immigrants on the streets of the Windy City. The loud whistling served to alert people at risk of arrest within earshot of the federal agents. The tactic has spread to other cities including San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles.
Asked about the use of whistles, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said their officers are “highly trained.”
“In the face [of] rioting, doxxing, and physical attacks they have shown professionalism, they are not afraid of loud noises and whistles,” she wrote.
Much of the ICE enforcement activity in New York City thus far under President Donald Trump has happened inside government buildings like 26 Federal Plaza, where immigrants show up to check in with ICE for required appointments, or for hearings in their deportation proceedings in immigration court.
But advocates in New York are bracing for that to change in the coming weeks, with Trump and members of his administration promoting a coming clash with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
The dramatic military-style raid on Canal Street last month offered a glimpse of what could be in store for New York City, though activists like Hu say they were inspired by the swarm of New Yorkers who quickly mobilized to confront federal agents.
One iconic image in particular, a woman in a polka-dotted dress blocking a road while giving agents in an armored truck the middle finger, has become a symbol of anti-ICE organizing in the city. The New York Immigration Coalition is even auctioning off the dress the woman wore.
“It’s that hooligan energy, that resistance energy,” Hu said. “That’s the energy we need to be bringing.”
