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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Vendors Face Criminal Summonses as NYPD Enforcement Continues Despite New Law

With the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the City Council’s recent passage of new vendor-friendly laws, New York’s roughly 23,000 street vendors expected a long-awaited reprieve from what they viewed as heavy-handed enforcement by the NYPD. But recently released city data shows that in the first three months of 2026, the New York City Police Department’s issuing of criminal summons actually increased, compared to the same period the year before. This is despite Mamdani’s voiced support for decriminalizing street vending and a slew of new vendor reform laws that took effect in March and aimed to eliminate the NYPD’s issuing criminal summonses for offenses such as standing within 10 feet of a crosswalk or not displaying a permit.
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NYC Announces New App to Help Street Vendors Avoid Costly Fines

The New York City Department of Small Business Services announced Thursday a first-of-its-kind program to help street vendors operate legally on city streets via a mobile phone app. Across the five boroughs, about 120 streets are off-limits to food vendors. Vendors operating in prime locations like Times Square and the Financial District can face a fine of up to $250 if caught operating their business in a restricted area. The new program, called Venture Forward, promises to help the city’s 23,000 street vendors avoid these fines.
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Pfizer Building Subcontractor Had Years of Safety Warnings Before Near-Collapse

While city officials continue to investigate the risk of collapse at the former Pfizer corporate headquarters, Laborers Local 79 started sounding the alarm three years ago about the safety record of one of the building’s demolition subcontractors: Northeast Service Interiors LLC. In 2024 and 2025, the city granted Northeast Specialist Group, LLC, demolition permits for the site, according to public New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) records obtained by Documented. The most recent permit expired June 18, 2026.
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ICE Detained 21 Workers in Upstate New York. An Entire Community Felt the Impact.

Every summer, the small, sleepy town of Lake Placid, New York, balloons in population to more than 10,000 from its usual 2,306. Nestled deep into the wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains, the rural village, renowned for twice hosting the Winter Olympics, swells partly because of its seasonal immigrant workers. Many of the workers are on temporary J-1 Exchange Visitor Visas and help fuel the town’s summer tourist economy as Lake Placid opens itself to visitors enjoying water sports, hiking scenic trails, and sightseeing every summer.
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United Nations Intervenes in Home Care Workers’ 24-Hour Shift Ban

In their fight to ban 24-hour shifts, home care workers have faced opposition from the governor, the mayor, the speaker of the city council, and the very unions that represent them. With few options left, the workers are seeking help from the seemingly most unlikely of places: the United Nations. On April 22, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls penned a letter to the U.S. Department of State, urging the federal government to take measures to improve the working conditions of New York City’s home care workers and eliminate 24-hour work shifts, stating that the shifts amounted to “forced labour.”
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Casino Debate Splits Democratic Candidates in Queens Senate Race

In today’s Democratic primary, the specter of a planned casino near Citi Field in Queens looms large over the contentious race for Queens’ 13th State Senatorial District. The proposal for the casino at Flushing Meadows Park, which has already been approved by the state, has divided the district that includes the primarily immigrant neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Corona, East Elmhurst, and Elmhurst. In the middle of the casino debate are those vying for the Queens Senate seat: incumbent State Sen. Jessica Ramos, State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, and perennial candidate Hiram Monserrate, who was expelled from the New York State Senate in 2010 after being charged with assaulting his girlfriend and later convicted of federal corruption charges.
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Years After Pandemic, Immigrant Healthcare Workers Demand Better Wages and Workplace Protections

Just one day before droves of Knicks fans wearing orange and blue took to the city’s streets on Thursday, a wave of purple shirts swelled Manhattan’s Foley Square. Dressed in purple were thousands of healthcare workers, members of the union 1199SEIU, who were rallying to win a new contract with pay increases, job security, and safeguards against workplace violence. Music blasted out of jumbo speakers on Wednesday afternoon, as the roar of pro-union chants like “Say it loud, say it proud, New York is a union town” reverberated for several blocks. The union, which represents 34.3% of New York’s healthcare workforce, is made up of many immigrant workers, whose jobs span from registered nurses to home care workers and hospital cleaners.
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Mayor Mamdani Announces Sweeping Workplace Heat Safety Guidelines

Extreme heat is killing construction workers, with at least four deaths occurring in New York state due to heat-related causes in 2024 alone. With the state already experiencing several heat waves this year before the summer has gotten fully underway, projections show the city is only going to get hotter by midcentury. Most susceptible to heat-related injuries are the 1.4 million people in New York City who work outdoors for long periods of time, many of whom are immigrants of color. To combat the growing crisis, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an Executive Order on Monday to protect workers from the dangers of rising extreme heat.
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Luxury Clothing Brand Accused of Stealing $54,000 From Workers

Workers at the high-end Manhattan luxury brand SALON 1884 are used to sewing garments retailing for thousands of dollars. But in a new indictment from District Attorney Alvin Bragg, workers allege that the brand’s owner owes them much more: nearly $54,000 in stolen wages. On Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, in cooperation with the New York State Department of Labor, announced an indictment against SALON 1884 owner Andrea Marshall, 44, in connection with wage theft and exploitative working conditions.
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Municipal Union Demands City Hall Release Pay Disparity Report

New Yorkers continue to struggle with an affordability crisis, and the city’s municipal workers are no exception. Now, one union is calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to finally release a report that could give better insight into pay disparity among city workers.  Since 2019, the mayor’s office has been legally required to publish an annual pay disparity report that breaks down compensation across city agencies by race and gender. The last time the report was released was in 2024, which compile...
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New York Immigration Coalition Employees Push for Union Recognition

On Tuesday morning, workers for The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) delivered a letter to management demanding that they recognize their right to unionize.   Dubbing themselves NYIC United, about 40 workers have been organizing since April for better pay and a greater voice in the direction of the organization. The workers’ demands also include increased protections for immigrant workers, support for their immigration cases, financial transparency and pay equity.
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Mamdani’s Executive Budget Increases Funding for Worker Protection Agency

Last week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani balanced the city’s checkbook — and shored up his campaign commitment to worker protections. On May 12, the mayor unveiled the $124.7 billion executive budget for the fiscal year 2027. Mamdani’s ability to avert a fiscal crisis by closing the city’s projected $12 billion deficit received much fanfare, but another victory flew under the radar: the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), the city’s top labor agency, received a budget increase.
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Immigration Discrimination Complaints Surge in New York During Trump’s Second Term

For four years, Guerrero rode in a van delivering food for 12 to 14 hours a day, earning less than minimum wage. When he finally worked up the courage to ask for a raise, his boss told him that “he could get two immigrants for the same salary,” said Guerrero, who preferred to go by his last name only for fear of reprisal. The comment motivated him to hire a lawyer and send his employer a notice of intent to sue. When word got back to his boss, Guerrero said that he sent someone to threaten him if he did not drop his case. “He’s telling me that he’s gonna call ICE on me,” Guerrero said.
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NYC Airport Workers are Fighting Their Boss Over Working Conditions

Just days after being cited on a list of employers with the worst safety records, a contractor at New York City airports was hit with more employee complaints.  Alliance Ground International (AGI) – named in the National Conference on Occupational Safety and Health’s annual “Dirty Dozen” Report – was the subject of two unsafe working condition complaints made with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
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Too Hot at Any Height: New Report Sounds the Alarm on Heat-Related Deaths at Construction Sites

As New York’s skyline reaches record heights, rising global temperatures remain a deadly factor on New York’s construction sites, according to a new report released today. Research conducted by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) in its 2026 Deadly Skyline report found that in 2024, the hottest year in recorded history, at least four construction workers in the state died due to heat-related causes. This is the first year the organization has tallied such deaths.
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He Went After Trump. Now He’s Going After Bad Bosses.

On May 1, celebrated worldwide as International Workers’ Day, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg delivered a gift for employees at a Midtown sports bar.  Owners of La Macarena Restaurant & Sport Bar at West 48th Street were indicted for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars in worker wages between 2021 and 2025. Although the restaurant closed in January 2025, at least six employees are still owed a total of more than $35,000 in unpaid wages.
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Let There Be Light: City's First Delivery Worker Hub Sits Empty Due to Lack of Power

On April 7, the city cut the ribbon on the country’s first delivery worker hub to much fanfare.  Located at 249 Broadway, right outside City Hall, the long-delayed hub was unveiled as one of the seminal triumphs of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days in office.  The conversion of an abandoned newsstand into a center for delivery workers to charge their batteries, rest, repair their bikes, and gain access to information on street safety was the realization of a dream by members of the Wor...
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“Scabby the Rat” Still Allowed Outside of Educational Facilities After Mamdani Veto

Scabby the Rat — the unofficial mascot of labor picket lines in New York City — just won a major battle in the fight to protect protesters’ rights On Friday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that he’s vetoing legislation that would have given the NYPD power to establish anti-protest buffer zones outside schools and educational institutions. Critics of Int. 175-B, including city labor unions, say the bill would have severely hampered free speech. The bill grew out of concern that the protests against what many regard as a genocide in Gaza could cause upheaval on local campuses.
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Home Care Workers End Hunger Strike on Apparent Deal — But Future of ‘No More 24’ Bill Still in Limbo

The weeklong hunger strike by 15 elderly immigrant home care workers to end 24-hour shifts in the home care industry is coming to an end.  The workers said they reached a deal with City Council Speaker Julie Menin Wednesday night, in which she promised to introduce the No More 24 Act to a vote on May 14. Although workers, who are part of the Ain’t I a Woman?! campaign, hoped that the speaker would introduce the bill sooner, they are willing to pause their hunger strike.
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