Portside

The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, and galvanized the U.S. labor movement. After 112 years, there is finally a striking and permanent memorial on the site.

We do not accept New York City and State officials’ cruel response to asylum seekers, scapegoating new arrivals to defund public goods for everyone. Mayor Eric Adams announced a city hiring freeze, cuts of 15% for all New York City public agencies.

No sensible New Yorker should believe for a moment that a stream of migrants — despite the daunting financial and logistical issues involved in giving them food and shelter, as required by law — can literally destroy our city.

"All over the country, immigrant workers are a big part of the workforce. They're all part of a base that can force change. We can't depend on political winds or what people tell us is possible. We have to be tenacious for what's just and righteous."

Reader Comments: Supreme Court: Diversity Not a Compelling Interest; Pay The Writers (And Actors); Outrage Over Medicaid Purge; German Left; Remembering Gus Newport; Charlene Mitchell; Cartoons; more....

The immigrants haven’t really changed since the Ellis Island days — but America has. In 1923, immigrants did not need a visa, or any other sort of prior permission, to enter the United States.

Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.

If poor and low-income Black, white, and Hispanic Texans turn out and stand together, they could change the outcome of Texas's gubernatorial race. They could shift the terrain — in Texas and every state that's playing politics with people's lives.

“The buses are not letting up. They are coming with more vigor. Initially it was a bus or two, then it rose to three, and now NYC receives six or nine buses a day coming directly from Texas.”