Fears of deportation among staffers at the New York headquarters of the United Nations has prompted officials to caution their minions to carry identification cards with them at all times, yet are such concerns justified? Will they ultimately force a crisis between the world body and its host country?
For now, UN officials are working hard to minimize the concerns, involving fears among staffers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are lurking in front of the storied compound on Manhattan’s First Avenue. “By definition, UN pass-holders are here legally,” the UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, tells the Sun.
Following Washington’s recent arrests and attempts at deportations of U.S. aliens, including the celebrated case of anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, though, Turtle Bay staffers have started wondering if they are next.
After staffers asked what to do, Mr. Dujarric says, “one department” issued an advisory to its employees. He added that “it was an email sent to advise people, staff members who read the news and see what’s going on and just to play it safe.” Mr. Dujarric denied any knowledge of staffers being “stopped” by ICE officials, or of any presence of ICE vehicles in front of the UN gates.
UN diplomats and staffers are carefully watching the Khalil case. In a brief to the court, the Trump administration said that in his student visa application Mr. Khalil has concealed that in 2023 he had been a member of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians in the Mideast.
The UN is evasive about Mr. Khalil’s employment with the agency, which America no longer funds after credible reports were issued of its direct involvement with Hamas in Gaza. “From what I saw in his LinkedIn profile, he’d been an intern at Unrwa, but that’s all I know,” Mr. Dujarric told the Sun before directing all questions elsewhere.
A New York Times reporter, Farnaz Fassihi, wrote on X on Monday that because of ICE presence on First Avenue, the UN issued the email to “all staffers,” advising them to carry UN ID cards and copies of their passports at all times. Mr. Dujarric acknowledged that the warning was a first of its kind.
“ICE agents stopped several UN staff, inciting anxiety that they were being targeted,” Ms. Fassihi writes. “Last week, a marked van with the ICE logo parked on First Avenue near UN HQ for an extended period of time.”
Even if exaggerated, are Turtle Bay staffers’ fears of immigration authorities a sign of things to come? The last thing diplomats and UN staffers would like is an eviction from Manhattan.
Yet in advance of meetings at the United Nations and Washington, the director-general of South Africa’s foreign ministry, Zane Dangor, warns about an widening rift between America and international institutions, including “attacks on the UN system itself,” which “in essence is about weakening the institutions,” he says.
Mr. Dangor, Pretoria’s point-man for a coalition known as the Group of 20, which South Africa now chairs, doubts, though, that such attempts would result in kicking the UN headquarters out of New York. America’s “resilience and democracy” will overcome any such movement, he says.
“I don’t think South Africa would like to support any movement of the UN headquarters from New York at this stage,” M. Dangor tells the Sun. “There’s a hosting agreement in place,” which existed since the UN’s inception, “and there’s no reason for it to be moved.”
Yet, is South Africa in a position to make such decisions? Its ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, received a hero’s welcome at Pretoria Sunday after Secretary Rubio stripped him of diplomatic credentials and declared him _persona non grata_. Last month Mr. Rubio declined to join G20 foreign ministers who gathered at Johannesburg for the start of Pretoria’s leadership of the group.
The Trump administration accuses South Africa of pursuing anti-American policies. One point of contention is Pretoria’s relentless attacks on an ally, Israel, in world bodies like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Presidents Biden and Trump both denounced the growing abuse of these international institutions to attack Israel.
America “is a leading partner of the United Nations, an invaluable contributor to the development of the work of the UN,” the spokeswoman, Monica Grayley, for the General Assembly president, Philemon Yang, tells the Sun. “At this point, there is hope that the relationship is going to be enhanced when the incoming Ambassador comes.”
America’s UN ambassador nominee, Elise Stefanik, was unavailable for comment at press time. Her confirmation hearings are reportedly due sometime in April.