Ahead of Trump's inauguration, Philly immigration advocates call on local leaders for support
Advocates say everyone, from the outgoing president to the mayor of Philadelphia, will need to manage the next four years.
By Nigel Thompson on January 18th, 2025.
This image was created using AI tools, specifically OpenAI's DALL·E. This is a custom-generated for this site and do not depict real events or persons.
Vietlead's Nancy Nguyen speaks to a crowd outside ICE's Philadelphia Office protesting for the closure of detention centers on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. Photo: Nigel Thompson.
It wasn’t until this past Christmas that Nancy Nguyen truly grasped how many holidays Sereyrath 'One' Van had missed—first during his time in prison and now while in Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, about 220 miles from his home in Philadelphia.
“It’s been seven Christmases that he’s missed,” said Nguyen.
As one of his chief advocates at the helm of Vietlead, Nguyen has talked a lot to Van since the summer, when ICE detained him during an unexpected check-in at its Philadelphia field office. It sent him to his second stint at Moshannon since he was released from prison after serving a sentence for a 2018 drug conviction.
Throughout it all, Nguyen said One has always been his “own advocate.”
“One is his own lawyer,” she said. “Every time he calls, he’s brainstorming and looking at case law, and looking at different possibilities because our legal system just doesn’t make sense, our immigration system.”
“We are in the land of the free but I don’t feel free and those in here with me don’t feel free,” One said through a speakerphone before a Dec. 18 rally that blockaded the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. “What did we do to deserve to be labeled and scapegoated?"
One’s voice for all
Since the 2024 election triumph of Donald Trump, that advocacy has spread to the entirety of One’s Philadelphia Southeast Asian community, and other immigrant communities across the city.
In the face of fear over threats of mass deportation, detention, large-scale ICE raids, and the like, those communities and their advocates have fought back with voices like One’s taking center stage.
“We are in the land of the free but I don’t feel free and those in here with me don’t feel free,” One said through a speakerphone before a Dec. 18 rally that blockaded the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. “What did we do to deserve to be labeled and scapegoated?"
Calling on national and local leaders
Thirteen activists were arrested that day on the bridge. The blockade called on the Biden administration to take more actions to protect immigrant communities in its waning days, pointing to a list of 22 demands compiled by the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition. It includes ongoing demands to shut down migrant detention centers, lifting its current asylum crackdown, and cutting funding to ICE, among many others.
So far, the administration only recently met one — to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants from countries already under the designation. The administration did that on Jan. 10, extending the status for migrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine.
It’s not just the outgoing presidential administration that’s being called upon to act to protect immigrants. Local elected officials have also come into focus to protect the communities they represent.
Ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Vietlead has sought to strengthen One’s case by reaching out to local Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, hoping to gain her support. However, Nguyen said Scanlon has yet to respond to their calls.
“In her refusal, folks like One and One’s family are going to suffer,” she said.
Assessing Mayor Parker’s silence
Outside of Congress, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has also come into focus not for the stance she’s taken to defend the city’s immigrant communities in the lead-up to inauguration, but her silence on the matter.
Advocates have hosted several rallies throughout the city, calling on Parker to reaffirm the city’s sanctuary status ahead of Trump’s second term.
Some are also less keen on still using the term ‘sanctuary,’ given Trump’s politicization of the term. He’s threatened to pull funding, throw local leaders in prison, or outright bulldoze them to carry out his immigration policies in cities across the country.
Philadelphia has long been one of the strongest cities in the country to get the designation, but it’s often misconstrued. What it amounts to is Philadelphia’s unwillingness to cooperate with ICE in its detention and deportation efforts within the city.
That was kicked off by immigration advocates working with Mayor Jim Kenney, who issued an executive order in 2016 to end the city’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) agreement with ICE. It required Philadelphia Police to inform ICE whenever an undocumented person was detained in a city jail, often leading to their deportation. The first Trump administration tried to sue the city to reinstate the policy but failed.
To more adequately capture the meaning beyond sanctuary, many advocates are instead asking for an affirmation of the city’s current ICE holds policy, which refers to the previous data sharing that was going on with ICE. They are also keen to point out that ICE still has data-sharing agreements with Philly courts and within its system of probation — something they still hope to end.
In one of its few statements on the matter, the Parker administration has said that the 2016 executive order regarding the PARS agreement would remain in place.
Beyond that, the administration’s response so far has been to keep within the confines of Parker’s goals for Philadelphia, improving public safety and quality of life for city residents and not responding to the incoming president’s rhetoric.
When reached by Inti Media for comment, the administration did not respond.
The response has left advocates like Nguyen calling out what she feels is hypocrisy in Parker’s messaging.
“I have seen her say over and over again, ‘We are one Philadelphia, we are a united Philadelphia,’ I think that’s her tagline,” said Nguyen. “I’m like great, so what does that mean that the city will do to protect its hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees?”
Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC) Executive Director Jasmine Rivera speaks at a press conference announcing the release of a new PICC study on the impact of immigrants in Pennsylvania. Photo: Nigel Thompson.
Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC), was less keen to call out Parker for her seeming lack of action, pointing to her previous action against a planned housing facility for migrant children in her district when she was a member of Philadelphia City Council.
“Cherelle Parker stood up and stood up fast, and shut that down, and made sure that that did not happen in Philadelphia,” said Rivera.
She also pointed to the immigrant diversity of Parker’s home district — Philadelphia’s 9th Councilmanic District — as another reason to believe Parker would stand up for the city’s immigrants.
“We have seen her be that champion in the past, and we are once again calling on her to be that leader,” said Rivera.
For One, although he’s still in Moshannon, ever the advocate, he’s hoping to take some of Trump’s rhetoric and flip it on its head.
"Trump brought immigration to the forefront to divide America and single out immigrants. But by doing that he also made it a top issue for Americans now,” he told the crowd gathered around the phone near the Ben Franklin Bridge. “We can use that to our advantage by highlighting immigrant’s struggles and putting out pro-immigration narratives. If we do not, we are putting immigrants on a silver platter.”
This content is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation. To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.