Are immigrants still welcome in Mayor Eric Adams’ New York City? We asked New Yorkers.

But in recent months, as the national sentiment continues to be divided on immigation, the mood in New York has also shifted.

It depends on who you ask.

On a cold morning in Upper Manhattan, in the back of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Bishop Matthew Hyde reflects on his life in the city for the last thirty years. He says he’s seen so much change in just a few short months. “The fear infects everything. People are worried about being out in public, doing even basic things like go to the supermarket.”

For some New Yorkers, however, Adams’ apparent shift on immigration is welcome news.

Over at Filoncino Cafe, an Italian sandwich spot that is a staple of Staten Island, Peter Giunta, chairman of the New York State Young Republicans says, “he’s willing to work with the administration on delivering on these policies that arguably all Americans gave President Trump a mandate to enact.” In the last three years, New York City has taken in over 200 thousand migrants. Giunta says, it’s about time the city starts getting rid of people without legal status, and a criminal record.

“I would disagree with that,” says Giunta. “I think New York’s core identity is the New Yorker. Not some person that came over from Guatemala or somewhere else,” he says. The immigrants that came in the 18th and 19th centuries, he argues, were different. “Like my great-grandparents. Italian, obviously. Very different set of values than, I would argue, than some of the migrants that have come over today have.”

Carlos Collado, originally from the Dominican Republic, is now a U.S. citizen living in the Bronx. The lifelong Democrat said he voted for Trump because he was alarmed about all the newer migrants coming into the city. He says a lot of his neighbors feel the same but are scared of saying so in public. He owns a supermarket here in the Bronx and says a nearby migrant shelter caused problems. He says incidents of shoplifting went up. “As a small business owner, I felt Trump prioritized establishing order and the rule of law.”

But he’s also wary about Mayor Adams’ growing ties with the Trump administration. He worries it will go too far. “I want immigration control. But I don’t want to see them separating families that are simply here looking for a better future, who are working and have not committed any crimes,” Collado says.

In recent days Mayor Adams has said he wants to crack down on “violent migrant gangs.”

In a statement released on February 13, he said he wanted ICE agents back on Rikers Island to work with “the correctional intelligence bureau in their criminal investigations, in particular those focused on violent criminals and gangs.” 

It’s a major shift. A 2014 law forbids the Department of Correction from collaborating with ICE unless there has been a serious or violent crime. 

The mayor said he was also looking into embedding NYPD detectives on federal tax forces, “focusing on these violent gangs and criminal activity” to keep New Yorker’s safe. “

But the mayor has up until recently boasted that violent crime is down in the city. 

It’s a tangible feeling over on Roosevelt Avenue located underneath the 7 train. This area is known for its bustling immigrant street vendors, but lately there’s been Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer sightings on a near daily basis, and it’s gotten quieter. I ask a vendor who sells Colombian buñuelos (warm dough pastries), if he’s ever seen people so scared.

Kaufman-Gutierrez is angry. “I think Mayor Adams does not know his own city or does not care to know his own city. The people who pay taxes in his city. The people who go out and shop every morning. The people who are up at 4 a.m. driving deliveries. Those are the people who run this city and are being served up on a silver platter for President Trump.”

Immigration, she says, is as New York as a slice of thin crust New York pizza.

Or a warm buñuelo on a cold winter night in Queens.