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Janae Pierre: From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. A deportation hearing will decide the fate of a Columbia University graduate. Immigration attorneys were in federal court Wednesday calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil. He was taken into custody by ICE agents this past weekend.

Khalil played a leading role in campus protests against the war in Gaza. Trump himself has called his arrest the first of many to come as it follows the President's executive order prohibiting antisemitism but New York Civil Liberties Union President Donna Lieberman describes Khalil's arrest this way.

Donna Lieberman: Unlawful, it's unconstitutional and frankly, it's beyond the pale.

Janae Pierre: Kahlil's attorney says he's a legal permanent resident and his wife is a US Citizen. According to detention records, Khalil is being held at a processing center in Louisiana. Both Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul say they're not commenting on the arrest until they have all the facts. In Albany, there's some pushback from New York state lawmakers on some of Governor Hochul's main budget proposals, specifically rebate checks and banning cell phones from schools. WNYC's Jimmy Vilkine has more.

Jimmy Vilkine: Leaders of the New York State Senate say Governor Hochul's plan to send rebate checks to most New Yorkers should be pared back. Democrats in the chamber would instead send the rebate checks to people over age 63 and extend the program to three years from one. State Senator Liz Krueger says the change will make the checks more impactful.

Senator Liz Krueger: We've reprogrammed what the governor was proposing to do with 3 billion in a more targeted fashion that will matter to the people.

Jimmy Vilkine: Hochul still wants to send checks to every middle income person and family.

Governor Kathy Hochul: I'm doing everything I can and will continue everything I can to get that money back in their pockets.

Jimmy Vilkine: The Senate's proposal signals that budget negotiations are kicking into high gear. Discussions are also underway on Hochul's proposal to ban cell phones from "bell to bell" in public schools. But Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins says schools should have the power to set their own rules between classes. That might mean allowing phones at lunch and recession.

Andrea Stewart Cousins: We've heard from the superintendents who want a little bit of flexibility, so we have injected that into the conversation as well.

Jimmy Vilkine: The senator says she's optimistic a budget can be enacted on time. It's projected to be $252 billion. The deadline is April 1st.

Janae Pierre: It's been five years since COVID-19 shut down the world. For some, it was a double pandemic causing widespread infections and fatalities, while also triggering xenophobia and racism against Asian Americans, specifically those of Chinese descent. After the break, we discuss how New York City's Chinatown has recovered since that time. Stay close.

When COVID-19 began spreading around the world five years ago, Chinatowns across the nation were among the first places to feel the pandemic's impact. Many restaurants and banquet halls, usually filled with revelers celebrating the Lunar New Year, sat empty. Plus, xenophobic rhetoric and hate crimes targeting Chinese Americans spiked, leading to the Stop Asian Hate campaign.

My colleague Sean Carlson wanted to find out how the city's Chinatowns have recovered from those dark days in the five years since. So we talked with Fulton Ho, a volunteer at Send Chinatown Love. It's an organization that supports Asian and immigrant owned small businesses across all of the city's Chinatowns.

Sean Carlson: Fulton, can we just step back in time? I know five years ago it feels like it went like that. Can you talk about how Chinatowns across the city's boroughs were impacted by COVID and what do you remember the most of that time?

Fulton Ho: Yes, for sure. I'm currently based in Flushing, grew up in New York, born here, and I think a lot of folks would compare the original couple months of COVID and its impact on Manhattan Chinatown almost similarly to 9/11. Post 9/11. The streets were empty, the lights were off, and there was very little foot traffic.

Of course, people still had to go about their regular errands. Over the course of the months, I think across the city, there were still folks taking the subways at a time where Asian hate and xenophobia was at its peak. Even in broad daylight there were experiences and attacks on Asian communities within Chinatown streets in Flushing, in Sunset park, across the city.

You could really feel the impact and that was why there were campaigns initially in the first two years about supporting Asian owned businesses, how different individuals and groups can rally together at a grassroots level to support.

Sean Carlson: It's fair to say that businesses in the city and across the country of all stripes had trouble during the pandemic given everything shutting down. How was that experience different for businesses in Chinatown?

Fulton Ho: So when COVID happened, of course you mentioned the xenophobia, the association to the virus itself. That's something that, it's hard to dispel those public perceptions and so when people receive different pieces of information online, they associate that, especially with Chinese cuisine, with Chinatown in itself.

In those communities, people feel it does have a lot of crossover with the willingness to go to Chinatown to dine at the restaurants there and be associated or even close to people who are East Asian looking.

Sean Carlson: How has the pandemic changed Chinatowns in the city? How are they different now versus five years ago?

Fulton Ho: I think even if you were to just walk around Chinatown, you can definitely feel the difference. Nowadays, the restaurants businesses still close very early compared to before the pandemic. Before then it would be open till 11:00 PM, almost past midnight. Now everybody just closes whenever it gets dark because there's still a long going perceived notion regarding public safety and whether or not it's safe to go home or safe to walk around.

With different businesses struggling and not being able to survive past the pandemic, you see them close up, whether their lease has been, past its 5 year period, 10 year periods, and some of them just feel that the cost of doing business in the city, not just Chinatown, but across the city, it's just been too heavy and burdensome to really handle.

I think them using this as a time to also retire and close up shop. As an individual level, we see that in many cases across the border of Chinatown where there's not as much foot traffic. When those things closes, we ask the question, who moves in? Are they younger Asian American folks who grew up here?

There are cases like Potluck Club and the same owners of Phoenix palace who do have restaurants that are carrying that legacy, but outside of that, it's very few Asian Americans continuing that prolonged business relationship in Chinatown. Often you think about the outskirts. Even in Lower East Side, people consider that Dime Square.

It's things that like that. Physically, you can see the changes slowly creep up to what we typically associate as the border or area of Chinatown.

Sean Carlson: During the pandemic, many young Chinese Americans joined advocacy groups, things like Send Chinatown Love and Welcome To Chinatown to help the neighborhood. What do you think that says about the next generation of Chinese Americans in New York City?

Fulton Ho: We see that willingness and that passion just to get involved with community. I think that seeing groups like Welcome to Chinatown, Meals for Unity, for example, I think all of that is really great and trending toward the right direction. I think we definitely need more younger Asian Americans or just friends just to help get back and support the local communities.

While there are a lot of volunteer opportunities, I think that I personally don't want to encourage a superficial way of volunteering where it's like self glamorizing. I think that whenever you want to get involved with the community, I think you want to approach with humility and trying to understand the local environment.

Sean Carlson: Well, what are some of the issues that Chinatowns in the city are facing right now?

Fulton Ho: I guess following the pandemic, the businesses have always dealt with issues on how to navigate a post-pandemic world where there's always changes to regulation. In the past couple years, I've noticed a lot of businesses that are immigrant owned with limited proficiency in English, they definitely struggle to adapt and really comply with a lot of the requirements from the city.

Sean Carlson: Do you think that New York City's Chinatowns are in better shape now than they were five years ago?

Fulton Ho: You can't deny that over the years there's many longtime Chinatown natives who've moved away to other enclaves where there's a bigger Cantonese population, such as Bensonhurst, there's Sunset park, where there's a large pocket of Fujianese immigrants as well. I think folks, if they don't feel that they can afford to live in the areas that they are familiar with, I think they disperse a little bit.

I would say as a whole, the overall Chinatown, I think, more and more are growing. We also don't want to leave Manhattan Chinatown behind. I see the everything happening in Flushing where that is considered the epitome of a lot of people's experience with China, and so all the businesses that are opening there are successful in Flushing.

I see that slowly affecting Chinatown because that is the next demographic that the new businesses want to open up.

Janae Pierre: That's Fulton Ho with Send Chinatown Love talking with my colleague Sean Carlson. Before we go, a reminder that should go without saying, your pet turtle cannot fly with you, so find another spring break buddy. The TSA says agents at Newark Airport detected a live turtle concealed in a man's pants last week.

Agents discovered the reptile after the traveler triggered a body scanner. The TSA says after a pat down, the man pulled out a 5 inch long red eared slider from the front of his pants, wrapped in a blue towel. Port Authority police confiscated the animal, which appeared to be unharmed, and of course, the man missed his flight. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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