NEW YORK CITY — Brad Song thought his electric bike was about to be stolen for the second time in less than a month after delivering an order for Chinese food app Fantuan Delivery. Seven strangers surrounded the Chinese immigrant and knocked him off the scooter. He was rescued when a nearby driver revved his engine, scaring the attackers.
His brakes were damaged and a phone used for navigation had its screen smashed, but while the February attack in New York shook Song, his bike and body emerged intact.
Asylum seekers have taken to food delivery jobs in New York and other major cities, attracted by the abundance of customers and the ease of getting started. But the job comes with risks, especially thieves who attack food delivery bikes. Newly arrived asylum seekers have been easy targets. Some work without legal permission, which can leave them afraid to seek help in an emergency.
Dissatisfied with the police response, many delivery drivers came together.
Juan Solano, who migrated from the Mexican state of Guerrero in 2017, founded E l Deliverers’ Diary en la Gran Manzana, a group of couriers who help recover stolen electric bikes, often with the help of monitoring devices. Launched during the pandemic, the group has more than 50 thousand followers on Facebook and a WhatsApp channel to alert delivery drivers about theft in real time.
Solano, 35, started working in food delivery during the pandemic with his nephew, Sergio, who had his e-bike stolen twice.
Thieves appear to be targeting isolated areas near bridges that connect Manhattan to other neighborhoods, especially those with less police presence. They especially attack those traveling alone.
A WhatsApp group, called Alert Willis, is dedicated to workers traveling on the Willis Avenue Bridge that connects Manhattan to the Bronx.
Sergio Solano said he waited for other workers before crossing the Willis Avenue bridge recently. After crossing, they returned to learn from their phones that another person was being robbed while traveling alone.
“The robber had some type of weapon, but we decided to confront him anyway,” Solano said. Outnumbered, the person fled without the bicycle.
New York’s migrant shelters have dozens, even hundreds, of scooters parked outside. The city estimates there are 65,000 workers delivering food — almost certainly an undercount — an unknown percentage of them newly arrived asylum seekers. An investment of $1,000 in a bicycle is the main requirement.
Asylum seekers must apply for a work permit, which leads many to work under the names of people who can work legally. Heisen Mao, a delivery driver and labor organizer, says drivers without work permits typically pay the account holder between $400 and $500 a month, or about 20% of their income.
DoorDash spokesman Eli Scheinholtz said the company’s safeguards against fraudulent accounts include requiring periodic selfies to verify identity. The company said bike thefts are “extremely rare.” Uber spokesman Josh Gold said in a statement that it has similar anti-fraud measures. Fantuan claims he personally checks the identity of each of his drivers and alerts couriers to high-crime areas.
The New York Police Department reported 11,157 thefts of bicycles valued at $1,000 or more between 2018 and 2023, with sharp increases to a peak of nearly 3,000 in 2020 as supply chain problems created enormous demand. Thefts are concentrated in certain areas, with lower Manhattan being the most prevalent.
The consequences can be deadly. In 2021, Francisco Villalba, 29, was shot to death in the chest after refusing to hand over his bicycle while taking a break at a playground. He had just delivered a DoorDash delivery in East Harlem. Her attacker was sentenced to 41 years in prison.
Tiburcio Castillo, 37, was fatally attacked on the Willis Bridge while riding home on his electric bike after a food delivery shift in 2022. After an extensive search, his family found him at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx in a coma, where he he died. No one was arrested.
Police insist they are vigilant against robberies.
“The NYPD will respond to all calls for service and investigate all reported crimes, regardless of immigration status,” the agency said in a statement.
The surge in asylum-seeking food delivery workers reflects a seismic shift in migration at the U.S. border, from predominantly Mexican men trying to evade capture to single adults, families and unaccompanied children from dozens of countries around the world who surrender to Border Patrol agents.
The Border Patrol has released about 1.6 million migrants with notices to appear in immigration court from January 2022 to April 2024 and about 600,000 under presidential powers known as “parole.” Since late 2022, the Biden administration has granted entry to an additional 1 million migrants through new or expanded legal pathways, using parole authority at land crossings or airports to stay for up to two years and immediately obtain work authorization.
New York began to see a large increase in the spring of 2022, driven in part by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who sent busloads of people at his state’s expense. The city currently estimates that it is home to around 195,000 newly arrived migrants.
Song, 30, arrived in New York last July amid a huge increase in the number of Chinese citizens arriving in the United States via a relatively new and dangerous route that has become increasingly popular with the help of networks. social. They start by flying to the Ecuadorian capital, Quito. The Chinese people are the fourth largest nationality, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians, who cross the Darien Gap, according to data from the Panamanian government.
Chinese asylum seekers say they are seeking to escape an increasingly repressive political climate and bleak economic prospects.
Song had his first electric bike stolen from the sidewalk during his lunch hour. The second attack, which resulted in a near miss in East Flushing, Queens, occurred just a month later.
“I shudder to think what could have happened if they had brandished a knife or a gun,” Song said.
Song ended up buying a car to make deliveries.
Gustavo, an asylum seeker from Venezuela who lived in the former Roosevelt Hotel, a city-run shelter, switched to a motorcycle after his electric bike was stolen 15 days after he began delivering food. He reported the incident to the police, without success.
“I knew where I was,” said Gustavo, who did not want to give his last name. “But if I had gone there, I would have hit the thief and then I would have been screwed because he would have been the victim.”
Fidel Luna, who has been delivering food to a restaurant in upper Manhattan since arriving in New York from Mexico in 2020, tracked his stolen electric bicycle to a building in January and immediately notified police. He said his repeated questions to the police received no response.
Police declined to comment on his case.
Luna, 29 years old, borrowed her brother’s bicycle to continue working. He kept control of his original bike and planned to intercept if the time was right.
“I would like the police to help, but I can’t wait, I need to get my bike back.”
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This is a collaboration between journalists at Documented, an independent nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reporting with and for immigrant communities, and the Associated Press. Attanasio is an AP reporter based in New York. Ojeda, Castillo and Xu work with Documentado.
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This story has been updated to correct the name of the DoorDash spokesperson; he is Eli Scheinholtz, not Josh Gold, who is an Uber spokesperson.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
