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Protestors confront Federal agents as they walk down Lafayette Street after an immigration sweep on Canal Street through Chinatown, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Jake Offenhartz)
NEW YORK – An immigration enforcement sweep targeting vendors on New York City’s famed Canal Street turned chaotic on Tuesday, as droves of bystanders and protesters surrounded federal agents and attempted to block them from carrying out the operation.
The confrontation between the agents and hundreds of angry New Yorkers took place along a busy commercial thoroughfare that has long been a hub of the city’s not-so-underground market for knock-off designer handbags, watches, perfumes and sunglasses as well as phones and other elec