‘Free Ravi Now’: Protesters Cry For NYC Activist’s Release

WEST VILLAGE, NY — More than 200 protesters descended upon Manhattan's federal immigration court Thursday night to demand the release of immigrant-rights activist Ravi Ragbir.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Ragbir on Thursday morning and plan to deport him to Trinidad based on an 11-year-old judicial order.

Many of the activists who gathered outside the Varick Street complex Thursday night — including members of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York, the group Ragbir co-founded — say the arrest was retaliation against one of their movement's most vital and vocal leaders.

"Why are they doing this to us? Why are they doing this to Ravi?" said the Rev. Donna Schaper of the Judson Memorial Church, who worked with Ragbir.

The rally drew a crowd that included Women's March founder Linda Sarsour, former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, clergy allied with Ragbir and City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who called Ragbir's arrest "an international disgrace."

Carrying banners, the protesters silently circled the building twice, at one point stopping to pray in front of a closed gate that hid holding cells for detained immigrants. Ragbir's wife, Amy Gottlieb, saluted immigrants who could be seen in orange jumpsuits before U.S. Department of Homeland Security staffers closed the gate.

Chants of "Free Ravi now" rang out at the end of the gathering.

The evening rally was tranquil compared to the chaos that unfolded on Federal Plaza in Downtown Manhattan right after Ragbir's arrest at the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service building. Eighteen people, including two city councilmen, were arrested as police roughed up protesters who tried to block an ambulance from carrying away Ragbir, who had fainted and then recovered.

Gottlieb told the crowd she doesn't know where he was taken after she rode in the ambulance with him to Bellevue Hospital.

"We do not know where Ravi is," she said. The crowd later chanted, "Where is Ravi?"

At Ragbir's meeting, ICE officials lifted a hold on a deportation order a judge first issued against him in 2006, said one of his lawyers, Rhiya Trivedi. A previous stay on that deportation was supposed to expire on Jan. 19, she said.

Ragbir spent 22 months in an immigration detention center from 2006 until 2008. ICE had previously used "discretion" allowing him to remain free with regular check-ins, ICE spokeswoman Rachael Yong Yow said in a statement.

"Mr. Ragbir’s immigration case has undergone extensive judicial review at multiple levels of the nation’s judicial system, including both immigration courts and federal appeals courts," Yong Yow said. "In each review, the courts have uniformly held that Mr. Ragbir does not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S."

But Ragbir currently has a pending appeal to his 2001 criminal conviction for wire fraud conspiracy in New Jersey federal court, along with a pending motion to reopen his federal immigration case with the Board of Immigration Appeals, Trivedi said. Success in either case would spare him from deportation.

Activists described Ragbir as an advocate who always devoted his energy to what he could do for others rather than worrying about himself. On Wednesday night he was most distressed about that day's ICE raids at 7-Eleven convenience stores rather than his check-in the next day, said Kara Urion, a New Sanctuary Coalition volunteer.

"Ravi never focused on how much he had to lose," Trivedi said. "He focused on how much other people had to lose."

Trivedi said she's asking elected officials to intervene with ICE on Ragbir's behalf. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said he met with ICE Field Director Thomas Decker on Thursday morning to ask the agency to give Ragbir more time to fight his legal battles, but Decker declined.

The New Sanctuary Coalition is known for housing immigrants facing deportation in churches to shelter them from ICE and for accompanying immigrants to court appearances. ICE arrested another one of its co-founders, Jean Montrevil, last week, which Urion said indicates a "clear message" from immigration officials to activists.

Schaper said the coalition "ain't going nowhere" in Ragbir's absence, but will become "stronger and more vital and more strategic."

Urion has hope for the future, she said, but she was still feeling the loss of Ragbir on Thursday night.

"Today it feels demoralizing, and it does feel like what our country is," she said.

(Lead image: A protester prays Thursdsay night in front of the federal immigration court on Varick Street in the West Village. Photo by Noah Manskar)