I’m Arya Sundaram, a race and immigration reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom.
This year, I’ve focused on chronicling the federal crackdown on immigration across the city. This is a topic that is personally important to me, the daughter of a naturalized citizen whose first home in the United States was New York City.
My reporting has been cited in judicial orders, sparked calls for Congressional inquiries, helped cement multimillion-dollar government grants and exposed potential violations of local and federal law.
I’ve also sought to uncover how life as an immigrant has changed under the second Trump administration, as once-routine immigration check-ins turn into land mines, the radius of daily life shrinks and immigrant neighborhoods grow quiet.
A story I wrote in April about a 4-year-old attending immigration court alone was cited by immigration advocates in helping secure millions in city council funding for unaccompanied children. In May, I broke the story about Department of Homeland Security officers handcuffing an aide in Jerry Nadler’s Manhattan office, which sparked calls for Congressional inquiries. My July exposé of poor conditions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold rooms in Lower Manhattan was cited in judicial orders requiring the agency to improve conditions.
And just this month, I uncovered that local and federal law may have been broken when DHS and ICE officers entered shelters without presenting required judicial warrants.
