On a sunny fall day in Tribeca, women wheeled screaming children into Washington Market Park to frolic in the kid-friendly playground. Paired to each stroller was the child’s care provider, typically an immigrant woman of color.
In the neighborhood, where the average income is $216,000, according to the American Community Survey, and African-Americans and Latinos make up less than nine percent of the population, immigrants provide much of the household help.
Immigration, a heated issue in the 2016 presidential election, has left nannies in Tribeca on edge. Many of them can’t vote, but most strongly dislike presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has voiced anti-immigrant sentiments since the genesis of his campaign and has advocated deporting undocumented immigrants.
Sonia Brown, 49, has been living in the United States for 17 years as an undocumented immigrant and has not returned to Jamaica for all that time.
“I have been here for so long working and I don’t think Trump can easily get rid of us,” said Brown, who has worked as a live-in nanny for several years with one family with three children.
She travels back to Brooklyn on weekends after completing her job duties, which include light housework and tending to the children. “America is built on immigrants and without them, who is going to take care of the children and elderly because the Americans definitely won’t do it,” said Brown.
Brown has a family of her own to support in Jamaica and the U.S., including her siblings and two daughters. She hasn’t seen her elder daughter in 17 years, since the child was 10. Her other daughter, age 13, was born in the U.S.
Deportation Fears
Tamika Richardson, 32, from Trinidad and Tobago, is concerned about the status of undocumented immigrants.
“I sometimes wonder what will happen to the children if parents get deported. I am fearful of families getting divided because what good is that for a child?” Richardson said as she pushed a stroller carrying an infant girl. “I think there is a smarter way to handle the issue of immigration and Trump’s way just isn’t right because he is going to cause division.”
Like Brown, Richardson is an undocumented immigrant and will not be able to vote in the presidential election. Even though she has no children, Richardson said other nannies who are her friends do. “For some of my nanny friends, this is all they know to make money to care for their family. They have nothing in their country to help them,” Richardson said.
Diana Limongi-Gabriele, 34, a blogger at BabyCenter, said mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would hurt the U.S. “There are so many people who are educated and that would be a great loss for this country,” said Gabriele, a second-generation American whose parents immigrated from Ecuador. “Why not let them work and contribute to the economy by paying taxes and not spend money sending them back home?”
She considers herself privileged to be born in the U.S. “It is wrong to have families separated,” said Limongi-Gabriele. “It breaks my heart because that could’ve been my experience.”
