Amir Khafagy

Amir Khafagy is an award-winning New York City-based journalist. He is currently the Senior Labor Reporter with Documented NY. Much of Amir's beat explores the intersections of labor, race, class, immigration, and urban policy.


His writing has been featured in The Guardian, Vice, The New Republic, New York Mag, The City, Bloomberg, Prism, Documented, The Appeal, Dame, The American Prospect, Jacobin, and In These Times. Additionally, Amir has worked as a researcher for the critically acclaimed podcast Serial. 

Previously, Amir was a Report for America Corps member. He has been awarded the 2022 LION Local Journalism Accountability Award, Type Investigations 2021 Ida B. Wells Fellowship, The Sidney Hillman Foundation's Reporting the U.S. Workplace Program, The Newmark J-School 2021 Education Reporting Scholarship, The International Center for Journalists COVID-19 Reporting Award, The New Economics Reporting Fellowship, The Economic Hardship Reporting Grant, The Talk Poverty Writer Workshop Fellowship, The Asian American Writers Workshop Open City Fellowship, and The AARP Freelance Fellowship. 



Amir holds a BA in Urban Studies and an MA in Urban Affairs from Queens College. 


As a performer, Amir has appeared in Ping Chong & Company's Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity. He has also appeared in Gun Country, a Houses on the Moon theatre company production.

A lifelong New Yorker, Amir was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, into a working-class, Muslim, immigrant family. His mother is Puerto Rican, and his father is an immigrant from Egypt. Follow him on Twitter @AmirKhafagy91

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Zohran Mamdani Joins Striking Workers on the Picket Line

Mayoral front-runner Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was greeted by a wave of cheers Monday morning from striking pharmaceutical workers as he visited them in a show of solidarity at their Bronx picket line.  As first reported by THE CITY, over 200 workers, many of whom are immigrants, have been on strike since Sept. 2, when negotiations broke down between their union, Teamsters Local 210, and their employer, Perrigo Pharmaceutical.  “Often, a strike is seen as if it’s a decision by workers;...
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They Helped Rebuild After 9/11. Now They Live in Fear of Deportation.

It’s been 24 years since the September 11 attacks, but Rosa Duque, an undocumented ground zero worker, still vividly remembers the hours she spent trapped under a collapsed wall.  Duque was hired to work as an asbestos removal cleaner at the heavily damaged Verizon Building across from the World Trade Center site. While she was removing contaminated debris, a wall fell on her, pinning her down with her face toward the floor. Engulfed in near total darkness, Duque could barely see a thing. For...
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ICE Denies Random Raid, Claims Tip Led to Arrest of Farm Workers in New York - Documented

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms in Upstate New York, in the early morning of Aug. 14, the immigration enforcement agency arrested and detained four Mexican workers and three Guatemalan workers. But following Documented’s recent report of the arrests, the agency claimed they were acting on a tip, not carrying out a random raid.  “Rumors that ICE raids farms in New York are a false narrative,” said Christine Cuttita, ICE’s regional spokesperson. “I...
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Comptroller's 'Wall of Shame' Dashboard Reveals NYC's Top Labor Violators for 2024 - Documented

Workers can be fired by their employer for numerous workplace infractions, but the widespread violation of workers’ rights often goes underreported.  For the second year in a row, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is hoping to bring those violations to light by announcing this year’s “Employer Wall of Shame,” a list of companies cited for a hefty number of labor violations in ten categories, including wrongful termination, prevailing wage violations, wage theft, and violations of workplac...
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Immigrant Labor is the Backbone of New York City Unions, New Report Shows - Documented

With New York City being renowned as both a union town as well as the gateway for millions of immigrants, a new study shows that immigrant New Yorkers make up an essential portion of the city’s unions. Researchers affiliated with the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies discovered that immigrant New Yorkers make up the majority of union members in the five boroughs.  The report, titled The State of the Unions 2025: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State, found that ov...
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Immigrant Farm Workers Arrested In Second ICE Raid at Upstate Farm - Documented

During the early hours of August 14, U.S. Immigration Enforcement Agents (ICE) launched a raid on the Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a sprawling 8,000-acre farm in Orleans County, New York, that specializes in growing snap beans, cabbage, and squash. ICE agents detained four Mexican workers and three Guatemalan workers. The recent arrests at Lynn-Ette are the upstate farm’s second ICE raid in the past three months. This May, federal agents detained 14 workers in a similar raid. At about 6:30 a.m....
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CDPAP Leadership Has Few Answers for Elected Officials - Documented

Amid ongoing claims of mismanagement and missed payments by CDPAP home care workers, state officials and the program’s new administrators continued to defend themselves and offered little new information about the New York State Medicaid program that allows eligible members to hire their loved ones as their caregivers.  On August 21, at a joint hearing of the Senate Committee on Health and the Senate Standing Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, lawmakers grilled representat...
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LaGuardia Airport Employer Failed to File Injury Data With Feds - Documented

LaGuardia Airport ground crew workers employed by Alliance Ground International are demanding access to the company’s workplace safety logs in the face of increased safety issues. The union 32BJ SEIU, which is organizing the workers to increase labor standards, says AGI has failed to share with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) injury and illness records as required by law.  Sometimes known as the “Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses,” the OSHA 300 form includes...
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In a Move to Protect Grocery Delivery Workers, NYC Council Plans to Override Mayor's Vetoes - Documented

On Thursday, the New York City Council announced its plan to override Mayor Eric Adams’ vetoes on multiple pieces of legislation that would deliver worker protection and minimum wages for grocery app delivery workers, many of whom are immigrants. The first law, Intro. 1133-A, sponsored by Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, would provide grocery delivery workers with new protections under the law, including access to bathrooms, distribution of fire safety materials, and insulated delivery bags...
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Criticism Mounts Over CDPAP Overhaul as Immigrant Workers Go Unpaid

“Boondoggle” is the word some are using to describe the state’s controversial overhaul of the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program, also known as CDPAP.   “I think it’s absolutely a boondoggle from many perspectives,” said Michael Kinnucan, senior health policy advisor at the Fiscal Policy Institute, who said the state’s CDPAP reform has been completely mismanaged. “The transition has been a real disaster for consumers and workers.” Established by the state in 1995, CDPAP gave fam...
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Immigrant Workers Targeted as Trump Cuts DOL Workplace Rules

Immigrant workers on farms and construction sites are at greater risk of injury under President Donald Trump’s new push to deregulate workplaces, advocates say.  On July 1, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced its plan to deregulate 63 “costly and burdensome” workplace rules that were put in place during previous presidential administrations. The agency stated that the action was in line with Trump’s Executive Order “Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation.”  Moving forward, for...
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Mamdani’s Rise and the Resurgence of Islamophobic Politics - Documented

As Zohran Mamdani surges in the polls in his campaign for mayor of New York City, Islamophobia is also on the rise.  A recent report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which analyzed online hate before and after New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, documented a sharp increase in digital hate speech and Islamophobia on social media in the wake of Mamdani’s primary win.  The study found that in the lead-up to the primary, between June 13 to June 23, 2025, there were...
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Advocates Slam Mayor Adams' New Department of Sustainable Delivery Agency

Responding to growing calls to regulate the delivery industry and address concerns about e-bike safety, Mayor Eric Adams announced on July 7 the formation of the Department of Sustainable Delivery (DSD). Adams vowed that the new agency would protect both delivery workers and pedestrians by holding delivery companies accountable for street safety. However, delivery worker advocates beg to differ, saying that the mayor’s DSD agency will instead increase the criminalization of delivery workers,...
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Eight Months & No Negotiations: SkyHop Workers Take on a $70M Company - Documented

Eight long months have passed and airport transport drivers for SkyHop Global are still on strike.  The workers allege that SkyHop, an airport transportation company, is refusing to negotiate with them in good faith in their attempt to secure a union contract that guarantees a living wage and health care benefits. They also claim that the company hired anti-union consultants to dissuade workers from joining the union, and then hired replacement workers once they went on strike.  While on t...
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Airport Union Alleges Newark Cargo Contractor AGI Violating Federal Labor Law - Documented

More than 100 cargo agents, ticket agents, and cabin cleaners at Newark Liberty International Airport, many of whom are immigrants, may be owed nearly $2 million in benefits supplements from their employer, according to a survey conducted by their union, 32BJ SEIU. The union filed a complaint with the New Jersey Department of Labor against the employer, Alliance Ground International (AGI), for possibly violating New Jersey’s Healthy Terminals Act (HTA).  Passed in 2021, the law requires emplo...
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Advocates Say Leaked Farm Bureau Memo Promotes Racist Science - Documented

In the wake of the state’s failure to pass workplace heat protections this legislative session, labor rights advocates are calling a memo that urged lawmakers to vote against the bill racist.   The memo, which was exclusively shared with Documented, was penned by the New York Farm Bureau (NYFB), the state’s largest agricultural industry lobbying group in 2024. In it, the NYFB claimed that claimed that the Temperature Extreme Mitigation Program (T.E.M.P.) Act, legislation that would require em...
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New York Workers Left to Sweat After TEMP Act Dies in Albany - Documented

As the summer kicks off with yet another record-breaking heat wave, working New Yorkers who toil under extreme heat conditions are going to have to wait to get some relief.  Last week, the New York Legislature ended its summer session without passing the Temp Act, a bill that would have provided workers legal protections from extreme temperatures. Introduced by New York State Senator Jessica Ramos in 2024, the legislation requires employers in agriculture, construction, landscaping, shipping,...
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Rank-and-File Members Push Their Union to Rescind Cuomo Endorsement - Documented

A group of rank-and-file union members from 1199SEIU are hoping to upend the mayoral race tomorrow by submitting a petition to rescind 1199SEIU’s endorsement of Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City, citing his record of scandals and close ties to the union’s former president accused of corruption. On Friday, members of New York’s largest healthcare worker union, 1199SEIU, submitted a petition signed by over 350 union members calling on newly elected union President Yvonne Armstrong to rescind...
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A Total Knockout: Lucha Libre is a Celebration of Culture, Resilience and Fun - Documented

It was Trump’s birthday. Tanks were rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C, and 5 million protesters flooded the streets of U.S. cities and towns. But in Trump’s hometown of Queens, around 250 New Yorkers wore elaborate, colorful masks to celebrate an integral part of Mexico’s heritage: lucha libre.  At Woodside Queens La Boom, a nightclub in Queens, masked luchadores and luchadoras flung each other across the wrestling ring in an acrobatic spectacle that delighted devoted fans w...
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Bangladeshi GrubHub Workers Protest Unfair Deactivations - Documented

Dozens of immigrant Grubhub workers protested outside the company’s Manhattan office Wednesday morning to demand that the company reinstate them after what they say are unjust deactivations. According to organizers with the Workers’ Justice Project (WJP), 52 Bangladeshi GrubHub delivery workers received the same email on June 10 stating that they were deactivated.  The following day, five workers visited WJP’s office seeking help with their deactivation. An hour later, 25 more workers who...
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